Days after Berlin signed a contract for the procurement of 38 Eurofighters, Airbus and Germany submitted an official offer to sell the fighter aircraft to Switzerland.
Days after Berlin signed a contract for the procurement of 38 Eurofighters, Airbus and Germany submitted an official offer to sell the fighter aircraft to Switzerland.
The offer to the Swiss Federal Office of Armaments armasuisse has been prepared in cooperation with the other Eurofighter nations as well as the industrial partners Leonardo and BAE Systems.
The offer meets the requirements of the so called new combat aircraft (Neues Kampfflugzeug -NKF) procurement process implemented by Switzerland to replace its currently used F-5 and F/A-18 fleet with a more modern model.
With the acquisition of the Eurofighter, Germany is offering Switzerland the opportunity to deepen its existing military partnership, particularly with regard to the joint training of the two air forces.
With the Eurofighter, Switzerland will gain full autonomy in the use, maintenance and application of the data from its aircraft.
With more than 660 orders, the Eurofighter is by far the most widely used aircraft for securing airspace over Europe.
It is operated jointly by the four partner nations Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain and is undergoing continuous development.
Germany had signed the contract last week for the procurement of 38 Eurofighters from the latest Tranche 4 and is offering Switzerland the opportunity to lay the foundations for even closer political, economic and security cooperation by procuring the same type of aircraft.
Michael Flügger, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Switzerland, said: “With this offer, we are inviting Switzerland as our neighbour and reliable partner in security policy and economic matters to protect its airspace with the Eurofighter and to close cooperation between our air forces. For Germany, Switzerland is not just a customer,but a strategic ally with whom we would like to further intensify our already close cooperation. The Eurofighter is the only platform jointly developed and operated by several European nations and would therefore be an ideal solution for Switzerland”.
With the new aircraft, Germany’s air force will now have a “multi-role capable aircraft,” which can be used not only against enemy aircraft but also against targets on the ground.
The new fighter aircraft will be equipped with the most modern radar technology.
Dirk Hoke, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, said: “With the offer, we want to show that the Eurofighter is the best overall package for Switzerland. It is the most modern fighter aircraft currently built in Europe and meets all the requirements demanded by Switzerland. By providing construction data and other important information, Switzerland will be given complete and independent control of the Eurofighter, guaranteeing full transparency. With over 200 suppliers in the Confederation, Airbus is already a strong partner for Switzerland, and we look forward to expanding this cooperation even further”.
According to Airbus, the Eurofighter Typhoon is the world’s most modern swing-role fighter.
Once conceived as a multi-national program to modernize the Air Forces of the European industrial partner nations, the Eurofighter Typhoon has been sold to five additional customers (Austria, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sultanate of Oman, Kuwait and Qatar) and thus doubled the number of its original user nations.
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