MANY A SHIP, IT IS SAID, is spoiled for a ha'p'orth of tar. The aeronautical equivalent could be the biggest-ever European collaborative fighter project being spoiled for the sake of not a half-penny, but a coin worth maybe a couple of dollars.
The Eurofighter EF2000 is technically ready for production, and three of the four nations involved (with a bit of a question-mark over Italy's commitment) are ready to begin investment in that production. One, however, is not, and Germany's persistent reluctance to make that commitment is now threatening progress on the whole project.
Germany's reluctance to commit to production has nothing to do with the EF2000 itself, and everything to do with that little coin - the Euro. If the German Government has an enthusiasm even greater than having a unified Germany at the heart of a unified Europe, it is that of having the German economy at the heart of the single European currency and its Euro unit. Unfortunately, the single European currency is much more than just a coin - it is a whole economic system, the public face of which is that coin.
In order for the Euro to come about, individual European governments must re-align their economies within the boundaries of pre-agreed so-called "convergence criteria". That means trimming their borrowings and expenditures to acceptable limits which would give their respective currencies rough equivalence of strength.
Unfortunately, no matter how much Germany may want the EF2000 and be able to justify it militarily, investing in big projects like this means that it will not be able to meet those criteria economically, so its government procrastinates on the production decision. Without Germany, the other partners probably cannot, alas, afford to proceed, so they must wait - and watch their aerospace industries suffer because of that wait. In effect, by trying to pull Europe together economically, the Germans are threatening to pull it apart industrially.
One of the few grounds for hope in this sorry mess lies in the result of last week's spectacular change of government in the UK. The incoming Labour administration, which has already pledged itself to supporting the EF2000 into production, is keen to sign up to some of the social aspects of European legislation from which its predecessor shied away. The German Government is likewise very keen for the British to sign up to this legislation.
Much of the opposition to accepting the social legislation in the UK has been on the basis of the threat to employment from the consequent increased labour costs. New prime minister Tony Blair will be keen to demonstrate that his more co-operative stance on Europe delivers greater job-security, not less. The price he could extract from Germany for bringing the UK quickly into line with the rest of Europe on employment practices (and, therefore, competitive labour costs) might be Germany's equally quick breaking of the funding logjam on the EF2000.
The incentive for Germany's Eurofighter partners to keep the pressure up is heightened by the very real fears over the results of Germany's next election, scheduled for 1998. The fear is that the Kohl administration will be even less able to push through Eurofighter funding in the run-up to a general election than it is now. If the funding is not voted through in the next couple of months, the theory goes, it will be delayed by at least a year.
That would be disastrous for the EF2000 programme. Against the political odds, the Eurofighter marketing team has achieved major breakthroughs in getting what is demonstrably a fine technical product onto procurement shortlists in markets as diverse as the United Arab Emirates and Norway, in competition with established standards like the Lockheed Martin F-16. All that progress will count for nought, however, unless that team can guarantee that the EF2000 will be available when export customers want it, at a price they can afford. It can only do that if Germany accepts now that boosting a real industry through meeting a real timetable is worth more to Europe than sacrificing the EF2000 project for an artificial currency timetable which it would be unable anyway to meet without a strong industrial base.
Source: Flight International
