Spain ends talks with US for F-35 fighter jets and renews interest in European alternatives

Government sources confirmed in early August 2025 that preliminary contacts had been indefinitely suspended.

Spain’s decision to cancel the F-35 acquisition was driven by a mix of budgetary rules, industrial policy, and strategic concerns.

The government’s €10.471 billion defense plan requires that 85% of funds be invested in European programs, making the U.S.-built F-35 incompatible with current spending priorities. Although Spain had allocated €6.25 billion in 2023 for a fighter to replace the AV-8B Harrier and C-15M Hornets, and had submitted a non-binding Request for Information, those steps were suspended.

Officials cited restricted access to the F-35’s critical systems, which limits national control and prevents integration of local technologies. The cost of the necessary infrastructure to maintain the aircraft and a unilateral price increase were also cited as negative factors.

The government aims to avoid dependence on non-European suppliers and instead support European initiatives like the Eurofighter and FCAS, aligning procurement with industrial participation and strategic autonomy objectives.

The decision also aligns with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s resistance to NATO’s 5% GDP defense spending target, limiting the government’s financial flexibility while reinforcing its emphasis on European defense autonomy.

  • anon6789@lemmy.worldEnglish
    241·
    2 days ago

    Nice article here on why a kill switch is unnecessary. It goes into the supply chain of parts, control over maintenance and IP, and associated systems tied in with the fighter’s advanced features.

    Its development was in coordination with (at the time in the 90s), and while a lot of funding was the US, it was built as something for us and our allies, even if those relations are strained now. There are a lot of countries that make things for the F-35, and if a killswitch were discovered, I can’t imagine it would please any of those countries and they could cease supplying parts or services the US needs in turn from them.

    To reiterate, there is no evidence to date that F-35s in service anywhere feature some kind of dedicated capability that can be used to fully disable the jets at the literal or figurative touch of a button. What is true is that Joint Strike Fighters are subject to particularly significant U.S. export and other governmental controls. Virtually all F-35s in service worldwide are dependent in critical ways on proprietary support from the U.S. government and contractors in the United States.

    “You don’t need a ‘kill switch’ to severely hamper the utility of an exported weapons system, you just stop providing support for it and it will wither away, some systems very quickly,” TWZ‘s own Tyler Rogoway wrote on X yesterday. “The more advanced the faster the degradation.”

    I’m no expert on this, but it all sounds pretty reasonable. If anyone understand better, please feel free to correct anything I’ve said!