Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S government has reportedly ‘shelved’ plans to buy F-35 Lightning II fighter jets from Lockheed Martin in the United States.
The El Pais newspaper broke the story on Wednesday, referring to ‘government sources’
There has been no comment so far from the Defence Ministry or from Lockheed Martin.
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Reports suggest that a French-manufactured jet could be an option.
The government had earmarked €6.25 billion to buy the US planes but has since had to shuffle its budget around.
Preliminary talks with Lockheed Martin have been suspended indefinitely, despite earlier signs of interest and budgetary allocations.
Spain’s plan to allocate most of its extra €10.5 billion in defence spending in its role as a NATO member, meant it could not afford the Lockheed deal.
85% of the new money would be spent on European-made military systems and equipment.
Lockheed previously claimed that the F-35s for Spain would be made in Italy and could therefore be classified as European.
Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, announced plans earlier this year to increase spending to meet the current NATO target of 2% of GDP, but refused to hike it to 5% during a summit held in June.
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