Labour Party will not support the purchase of the JSF test aircraft.
07:01 GMT, April 23, 2009 A heated debate took place at the Dutch parliament yesterday regarding whether to purchase the first two Lockheed Martin-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) fighter aircraft. The debate began at 4pm and continued late into the night as serious disagreements between the three coalition partners emerged. These apparently irreconcilable differenced may have serious consequences for the Dutch cabinet, according to most national newspapers.
Labour, one of three parties in the coalition government, shocked the cabinet by stating they will not support the purchase of the JSF test aircraft, valued at €274 million.
A decision on whether to spend €6.1 billion to buy 85 fighter jets does not have to be made until 2010. However, according to the Labour party, agreeing to buy the test aircraft will commit the country to further purchases.
Labour's parliamentary leader, Mariëtte Hamer, said she wants the Netherlands to remain involved in the development of the fighter but is opposed to binding the nation to such a large programme at this stage.
“We want to make sure we don’t get sucked into a billion euro project which may later turn out to have been the wrong decision,” Hamer was reported as saying.
The Christian Democrats (Christian Democratic Appeal) and defence ministry want to sign the deal to purchase the two aircraft by the end of this month. According to this block, the JSF is the correct aircraft to replace the fleet of F-16s currently used by the Royal Netherlands Air Force.
Deputy Defence Minister Jack de Vries announced he remains committed to the proposed purchase. He said that a decision not to buy the fighters would cost the country at least €873 million. A large part of that, €760 million, is made up of money the Netherlands has already invested in the programme. Beyond that, employment and research opportunities for Dutch companies would be lost as a result of the country leaving the programme. Mr de Vries further stressed that an agreement to buy the JSF test planes was part of the 2006 coalition accord and emphasized that the aircraft are urgently needed to train pilots.
The third party in the coalition government, the Christian Union, wants to purchase at least one JSF aircraft.
The Labour Party's decision not to vote in favour of the purchase now means there is no majority support in parliament for the cabinet's plan. It remains unclear what consequences this will have.
Hamer said Labour's decision not to approve the purchase need not cause a coalition crisis. “We are not looking for a crisis,” she said. “We just want to make a good decision on behalf of the taxpayers.”
As regards the other major partners in the JSF programme, the UK has recently indicated that it will place an order for three test aircraft within this year, while Italy has cancelled the proposed purchase of two aircraft due to financial constraints.
Luca Bonsignore
