Douglas Barrie/LONDON

THE FOUR EUROFIGHTER partner nations face a minimum additional DM500 million ($325 million) bill and a further year's delay, as well as serious political recriminations, unless Germany can resolve its budgetary crisis by the end of the year.

Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) and the German defence ministry have been involved in increasingly agitated discussions on trying to close a DM250 million funding gap. Bonn sources say that German defence minister Volker Ruhe and finance minister Theo Waigel are locked in a political tussle over budget expenditure as European monetary union looms, with the Eurofighter EF2000 effectively a financial football.

At a service and industrial level, the UK remains implacably opposed to any further delays in the EF2000 programme. One senior Royal Air Force officer says: "The Germans are messing it up for the other three nations."

At an industrial level, a further delay would cause discomfort among major component suppliers, while also threatening to undermine export opportunities for the aircraft. German industrial sources claim that senior DASA officials are in direct discussions with German Chancellor Kohl.

The Government's budget committee will meet again on 14 November, providing the penultimate opportunity to resolve the problem. The final opportunity will be during a European Council meeting on 13-14 December in Dublin, Ireland, which will be attended by both Kohl and UK Prime Minister John Major.

DASA requires DM350 million in 1997 for the production-investment phase of the programme. The German defence ministry has placed only DM100 million on the table, a figure unacceptable to DASA, say sources. A hidden danger of further delays is the prospect of the EF2000 programme once again becoming a contentious political issue in the lead-up to the German federal elections, which are due in 1998.

Programme sources also suggest that another option being examined is to attempt to reduce further the specification of the German EF2000, to save funding. The practicality of this, however, is seriously questioned.

According to both Bonn and Westminster political sources there is a considerable element of brinksmanship in the tussle over Eurofighter funding between Ruhe and Waigel.

Some expect that a final, Kohl-brokered, compromise, solution will not emerge until mid-to-late December.

Financial problems have also caused some Italian defence officials to suggest that the Italian air force's order of EF2000s be cut from 130 to 90. The air force has proposed a reduction from 130 to 121 aircraft.

Source: Flight International