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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 20, 1984
PAGE 13
The Defense Ministers of five Western European countries have
agreed in principle on joint development of a new fighter plane,
for service in the mid-1990s. The agreement on the plane and on a
new jet engine to power it was reached Monday in Madrid by Brit
ain, France, West Germany, Italy and Spain.•.•
Military officials say the decision was reached despite United
States misgivings � the exclusively European nature of the
project, which challenges the American aircraft industry's tradi
tional domination of the Atlantic alliance market.
American officials said the United States had been urging for
nearly a year that American companies be included, particularly
in developing the engine, avionics and the weapon guidance sys
tem. The Americans said costs would be raised by the small size
of the European defense industries and by demands from each coun
try for the biggest possible share of work, leading to duplica
tion.
The Americans contended that United States contractors
would make management � efficI'erit. The United States fears
that any cost overruns on the proJect will reduce the Eurooeans
1
com�at readiness either
J2Y
cutting the number of planes they
order .2!.
.£Y
econom1z1ng in other fields••.•
Defense Minister Charles Hernu of France called the pact "the
first military cooperation agreement of such a scale to be
studied and brought to fruition since the end of World War II."
Building the plane, he said, "is � real international challenge
that will make Europe_!!! aeronautical power£!:!� world scale."
The new twin-engine single-seat fighter, provisionally called
Future European Fighter Aircraft, would fly at twice the speed of
sound and is intended to replace the F-4 Phantoms in service with
the British and West German Air Forces as well as France's Mirage
fighter fleet and the Jaguar fighter-bombers developed by Britain
and France.
Should this project be too costly and the Europeans have to cut back on NATO
commitments, the U.s. Senate will once again call for a scale-back of
American forces in Europe.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau