Saudi Arabia wanted more Eurofighters. Germany said not yet.

Saudi Arabia could want more Eurofighters and still need Berlin to say yes. In 2023, Germany’s position held up the proposed expansion.

Reuters reported from the NATO summit in Vilnius on 12 July 2023 that Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany would not deliver Eurofighter combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the near future. He said there would be no decision “any time soon.” A German government source told Reuters that the issue would not be decided during the legislative term ending in 2025.

The statement concerned further aircraft, not Saudi Arabia’s existing fleet. It did not mean that every Typhoon already delivered to the Royal Saudi Air Force was unavailable, that maintenance was stopped or that the country lost all access to the programme. The documented constraint was on additional deliveries and the political approval needed for them.

The aircraft’s industrial structure made that approval consequential. Reuters reported that Britain’s BAE Systems had agreed to supply 48 of the jets five years earlier, but about a third of the components came from Germany. Eurofighter is a multinational programme involving Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. A willing customer and a British supplier therefore could not make the export decision disappear if German-origin content and German approval remained in the chain.

The immediate disagreement was political. A German newspaper cited an internal government document saying export-licence applications for Saudi Arabia would be postponed until the war in Yemen ended. Saudi Arabia had led a coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen since 2015. Reuters reported that the conflict had caused extensive human suffering. It also reported that Germany had halted arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The condition was contested inside Germany and across the consortium. Britain argued that the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran meant Germany could no longer block Eurofighter exports to third countries. Reuters reported that Germany’s governing coalition was divided, with the Greens strongly opposed to unblocking the sale. Britain and Saudi Arabia could favour a follow-on order. The German approval point still mattered because part of the aircraft originated there.

This was not a dispute over whether Eurofighter could technically fly to Saudi Arabia. It was a dispute over whether a partner government would authorise an export in the political circumstances of 2023. A multinational weapons programme distributes industrial work and technical expertise. It can also distribute the power to delay a customer’s purchase.

The record does not give the number or value of the additional aircraft Saudi Arabia sought in the 2023 episode. It does identify the earlier British agreement for 48 jets, but that is not proof that the follow-on order was for 48, or that all 48 had been delivered. The figures must remain separate. The article therefore describes a proposed expansion rather than a defined order quantity.