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Italy Defence and Security Report Q4 2009Published by: Business Monitor International Published: Oct. 21, 2009 - 77 Pages Table of Contents
AbstractIn July 2009 the inter-ministerial committee reported to the Italian parliament on the government’s longtermdefence plan. These draft plans envisaged the total size of the armed forces dropping from 186,000to some 141,000 by 2012. The bulk of these cuts will fall on the army, which will lose many of its shorttermcontracted professional soldiers. The committee recommended a major re-structuring of the Italianarmed forces, based around the eventual equal balancing of spending on procurement and personnel. Thearmy will bear the brunt of structural changes under the proposals and it is unlikely it will be able expandto a 12 deployable brigade structure from the current structure of 11 brigades. It is unclear yet how thiswill impact on the ambitions of the Italian army to convert its brigades into medium weight units capableof global rapid reaction missions. BMI believes that if the package of changes is agreed it would have amajor impact on the capacity of the Italian military to play a role on the world stage and could force thegovernment to be more cautious about committing troops to international missions.Long-term budget trends have led to renewed speculation that several major equipment programmescould come under threat. These include delays to the Freccia medium infantry fighting vehicle;cancellation of the replacement of the Atlantique maritime patrol aircraft; the new national airborne earlywarning aircraft and the land attack batch of the Bergamini-class frigates, which are being built in cooperationwith France under the Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM) programme. Budgetpressures this year have already forced Italy to withdraw from the NATO C-17 Strategic AirliftComponent programme. However, the Italian air force received a major boost on July 31 when the four Eurofighter partner nationssigned the Tranche 3A contract. This will see Italy buy 21 Tranche 3 Typhoon aircraft for delivery by2013, as part of an umbrella contract that will see 112 aircraft delivered to the partner nations. The secondphase, known as Tranche 3B, is due to be signed by 2012 and will cover the final phase of Typhoonassembly as well as possible upgrade paths. Yet threatened budget cuts mean it is unlikely that the Italianair force will receive all of its 121 Typhoon aircraft. In July Alenia Aeronautica pulled out of negotiations with the Romanian government to buy acontrolling stake in the Avioane Craiova aerospace venture. Italian defence giant Finemaccanica wasmore successful in its bid to find new partners in Eastern Europe in August when it announced aUS$114.9mndeal to take a 93% stake in the Polish helicopter and aircraft systems company, PZLSwindnik. The Polish company already makes components for AgustaWestland’s AW139, AW109 andAW119 helicopters and the new operation will be even more closely integrated into Finmeccanica’shelicopter subsidiary. Airframe manufacturing work for AW101 helicopters is expected to be among thefirst items of work transferred to the Polish site, after the deal is completed later this year. The takeover ofthe Polish company is part of a continuing trend by Western European aerospace companies to movecomponent manufacturing to Eastern European sites. In the helicopter sector, EADS subsidiaryEurocopter already has a tie-up with Romanian rotor craft manufacturer IAR. Get Full Details About This Report >> |
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