If the case was not as serious, she would ready to smile. On the one hand, the Swiss government suggests in recent days that it would have been led by boat across the Atlantic, and that “Fixed price” had indeed been frozen in the contract initialed on September 19, 2022 for the purchase of thirty-six f-35 hunters. Considered excessively efficient with regard to the only police mission in the sky that will be entrusted to them in the alpine and neutral country, these aircraft will gradually be delivered to the Swiss Air Force between 2027 and 2030, while they already equip other European Air Force members of NATO.
A fixed price, really? In Washington, the Trump administration, so far laconic on the subject, evokes a “Misunderstanding”. But Wednesday, June 25, in Berne, the Swiss Defense Minister Martin Pfister, was forced to admit, after months of rumors, that the acquisition of American devices could cost more than 1 billion Swiss francs (about 1.07 billion euros) to the contributable, a way of recognizing that the fixed price never really was in the minds of those who wanted to impose this aircraft at all costs. In reality, some observers believe, the amount of the overtaking could even double.
It was not necessary to spectacularly relaunching a sensitive file which has never stopped making waves since Berne opted for the device of the manufacturer Lockheed Martin rather than for the Rafale de Dassault – yet preferred by the pilots of the Swiss Air Force during the flight tests.
From the start, the former Minister of Defense Viola Amherd-who resigned to everyone’s surprise in March after a series of crises within the army-repeated that the F-35 offered the best value for money and assured that Switzerland had negotiated and obtained legally binding conditions. An affirmation all the more strange since, in the armament sector, the additional production costs are generally invoiced to the customer. “We buy at a fixed price. This was also publicly confirmed by the United States, by the American ambassador “she declared before the Parliament, in September 2023.
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