“So we will have a dangerous dependence on the US”
German industrialists accuse German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of hastily rushing to buy 100 F-35s bypassing the domestic defense industry!
The Confederation of German Industries is up in arms over Scholz’s decision to buy Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II fighter jets.
The latest report from German publication Wirtschaft says the decision to buy the F-35 off the shelf will deal a serious blow to the German arms industry in the absence of rights to maintain or domestically manufacture the aircraft’s components.
Also the Federal Association of the German Aerospace Industry (BDLI), in its report, states that the German Ministry of Defense was wrong to not demand the participation of the industry in the maintenance, repair and support of these expensive aircraft. Something that even the Greek government did not do with the Rafale.
The BDLI reiterated that the German defense industry is at risk of being out of business with the purchases of F-35 fighter jets and CH-47F Chinook heavy duty helicopters, totaling more than 16 billion euros.
The report quotes the association’s president, Martin Kroell, who stated that “new US fighter jets or helicopters for the Bundeswehr could therefore not be kept in Germany, but in other European countries in the network of the US armed forces or by the American companies Lockheed (F-35) or Boeing (Chinook). This creates a dangerous dependency.”
Airbus Helicopters CEO Wolfgang Schoder also criticized the German government’s hasty and reckless decision to import weapons from external partners. Soder said it jeopardizes not only the independence of the domestic defense industry, but also its military technology.
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has come under fire for a “hasty decision” to boost the country’s combat capability without much attention to its military-industrial complex.
Kroell said German industry should sit at the table on equal terms “and not leave everything to friends in the US”.
