Reference News website, January 24 report: According to the "Nikkei" on January 24, the contract for the next-generation fighter aircraft jointly developed by Japan, the UK, and Italy has been forced to be postponed. One of the reasons for the delay is that the Trump administration is urging Europe to quickly increase defense spending, so the UK has not yet determined its funding amount.

The report said that the contract was originally planned to be signed by the end of 2025 by the Global Combat Air Programme International Governmental Organization (GIGO), an international organization established by the three countries' governments and joint ventures of the three countries' main defense companies, called the Wingtip Company. Signing this contract would mark the start of full-scale development work on the fighter aircraft, but if the contract is delayed, the "2035 deployment" goal, which has always been considered difficult, may become even more challenging.

According to sources, the main reason the contract failed to be signed on time was the situation within the UK.

The report mentioned that with the Trump administration weakening its commitment to European security, and the threat from the Russia-Ukraine conflict becoming increasingly severe, the UK was forced to rebuild its defense capabilities. In the summer of 2025, the UK formulated a ten-year defense force development plan. The plan includes developing nuclear warheads, building new nuclear submarines, building ammunition factories, and increasing the number of troops. However, during the formulation of the plan, the UK found that as the plan became more detailed, the estimated costs were rising higher and higher.

Even according to the NATO common goal, that is, defense spending should account for 3.5% of GDP by 2035, the UK's money is not enough to pay for this "strong military plan bill".

According to the report, in order to keep defense spending at a reasonable level, the UK needs to cut a budget of 28 billion pounds. Due to financial constraints, the investment plan originally scheduled to be announced in the autumn of 2025 has been postponed. According to British media reports, this work may not be completed until this spring.

Evidently, signing the cooperation contract for the next-generation fighter aircraft between Japan, the UK, and Italy before this becomes an "impossible task". If the contract cannot be signed, the three governments will continue to advance the R&D work based on their respective contracts with domestic major defense companies. This means that GIGO and Wingtip Company, which are responsible for centralized management and operation of the R&D work, will not be authorized, and the coordination work between the three governments and companies will also require a lot of extra effort and time.

This next-generation fighter aircraft joint development program, named "Global Combat Air Programme", started in 2022, and the three countries will jointly develop a sixth-generation aircraft with performance surpassing advanced aircraft such as the US F-35 through a public-private partnership model. (Translation/Chen Xi)

Original: toutiao.com/article/7598927739378221619/

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