The Swiss government refuses to submit to a referendum the planned purchase of F35 fighters
In 2014 the population already voted against the acquisition of Gripen aircraft, but now the executive refuses to delay further the modernization of its fleet
A popular initiative advocates in Switzerland to reject the planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets, which last year decided the country’s executive after in September 2020 the population authorized the acquisition of new fighters. Now, 120,000 Swiss have signed their opposition to this operation which, however, the country’s Ministry of Defence is determined to carry out. Agreement with the will of the citizens is a fundamental feature of Swiss democracy, where it is common to scrutinize its most outstanding political decisions.
In 2014 Swiss citizens already rejected in a referendum the planned purchase then of 22 Gripen aircraft from the Swedish Saab for about 3,500 million dollars. As a result, in mid-2016 a group of experts was tasked with evaluating a new solution for the country’s air defense through a report of recommendations. The paper included four options, each based on a different degree of development of airspace protection systems, and described their advantages and disadvantages.
The option that was chosen proposed the purchase of 40 fighters and the acquisition of a new air defense network for a total of 9,000 million Swiss francs in total, of which 6,000 million are destined exclusively to the fighter program, which is equivalent to just over 6,200 million euros at the current exchange rate.