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Formal procurement processes for Switzerland, Finland, Germany and the Czech Republic have not yet begun, a Lockheed Martin official said in an email to Defense News. Eventually, the company expects more than 550 F-35s will be stationed in Europe by 2030, to include U.S. Air Force squadrons based at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other European program participants include Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contracts and pushback<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Part of the F-35\u2032s success in Europe comes down to great timing, as many European air forces prepare to recapitalize their fourth-generation fleets, said Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPartly by design and partly by good fortune, the F-35 turned up at the right time,\u201d he told Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
European airframe manufacturers traditionally had more success off the continent, noted Richard Aboulafia, managing director of the consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory. \u201cThey know their turf, and their turf for the most part isn\u2019t Europe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
French company Dassault, in particular, has recently scored notable victories outside of the continent, winning contracts to sell the Rafale to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Indonesia, among others. On the European side, France in 2021 signed a contract to provide Croatia with 12 secondhand Rafale jets.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n But the main selling point for purchasing a European airframe for non-continental allies and partners \u2014 the promise of a long strategic relationship \u2014 \u201cjust doesn\u2019t apply to NATO Europe,\u201d Aboulafia said of the European alliance members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key benefits include the F-35\u2032s interoperability. The aircraft is used in NATO missions such as Baltic Air Policing, and the U.S. earlier this year deployed several aircraft to the alliance\u2019s eastern borders to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions following Russia\u2019s February invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As more nations pick the F-35, those countries\u2019 armed services become evermore interoperable across ground crews, training and logistics efforts, said Dan Darling, a senior analyst at Forecast International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s more, the F-35 comes with a robust upgrade road map, with \u201ca steady stream of product improvements\u201d that ensures the aircraft will remain relevant for decades to come, Aboulafia noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reemergence of Russia as an adversary in Europe following its invasion of Ukraine has also prompted allies to prioritize stealth technologies, particularly for Germany and Finland, he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recent selections haven\u2019t all been without roadblocks. A Swiss coalition of socialists and Green Party members launched an effort, dubbed \u201cStop F-35,\u2033<\/a> to swing a referendum on the procurement decision before the offer period expires in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This approach was successful in 2014, when the Swiss voted 52% to 48% to block the presumed sale of Saab Gripen aircraft meant to replace Switzerland\u2019s Northrop F-5 aircraft<\/a>. But it may not work this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite \u201cStop F-35\u2033 retrieving 100,000 signatures to launch the referendum campaign, the Swiss government announced Aug. 24 that it was \u201cnot possible\u201d to schedule the vote before the offer period ends,<\/a> citing the risks of renegotiations with Lockheed and losing its delivery slot to other nations in line. The government urged the procurement to move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cStop F-35\u2033 coalition retorted in its own Aug. 24 statement<\/a> that the government gave an \u201cempty promise\u201d to wait for a referendum before the contract was signed and called the decision \u201ca cowardly dodge.\u201d A spokesperson for the coalition told Defense News in an email that the group is debating its next moves, but will \u201cnot be giving up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Germany\u2019s side, the decision to procure F-35s went against years of plans to buy Boeing-made F-18s, and it caused further tension between Berlin and Paris, as the two nations have also hit workshare snags in the Franco-German-Spanish effort to build a next-generation fighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The F-35\u2032s success in Europe could exert pressure on tandem efforts to develop a sixth-generation fighter jet and associated weapon systems, analysts noted. The United Kingdom and Italy have teamed up to develop cutting-edge technologies to feed into the Future Combat Air System program, also known by its abbreviation FCAS and its nickname Tempest, with Sweden as something of an observer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, France, Germany and Spain committed to their own FCAS effort, also known by its French abbreviation SCAF, for syst\u00e8me de combat a\u00e9rien du futur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The American-made aircraft\u2019s wins overseas have \u201cfocused European minds on what they need to do next time around,\u201d said Barrie. French government and industrial leaders in particular have been vocal about the need to \u201cbuy European,\u201d<\/a> openly critiquing neighbors\u2019 decision to buy the Joint Strike Fighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last spring, Dassault CEO Eric Trappier hinted that Germany was under pressure to buy F-35s,<\/a> even as the country paid lip service to the \u201cbuy European\u201d mantra. France\u2019s Dassault and Germany\u2019s Airbus Defence and Space have remained deadlocked for months over the workshare division on SCAF\u2019s keystone project, the next-generation fighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During a March earnings briefing, Trappier placed the responsibility on Berlin. \u201cWe will see with our No. 1 partner, which is Germany, whether the first decision they make [after investing \u20ac100 billion (U.S. $99.8 billion) in new defense capabilities] is to sign the FCAS contract, or to buy the F-35,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Darling said he doesn\u2019t expect Germany\u2019s relatively small F-35 procurement to ground the entire SCAF program, \u201cbut it does throw a bit of another wrinkle into the equation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trappier and French President Emmanuel Macron are justified in their urging of Europeans to buy from within their borders so that their industries can remain competitive, said Barrie. \u201cThe F-35 was always seen by Macron as a problem for Europe \u2026 because it is fundamentally a U.S. product at the end of the day,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, some analysts noted that France tends to play poorly with its neighbors on defense programs \u2014 for example, when it withdrew from the Eurofighter program in the 1980s in favor of developing its own aircraft, which became the Rafale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comparing the program structure of a French combat aircraft to the Gripen or Eurofighter, Aboulafia said: \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a single gasket that crosses [France\u2019s] border.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After this spate of selections, Europe\u2019s big defense spenders are largely spoken for. Fleet recapitalizations tend to come in waves, Barrie noted, adding that \u201csales won\u2019t completely dry out, but they probably won\u2019t be at the same rate as they\u2019ve been recently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fleet recapitalization efforts within Spain\u2019s Air Force and Navy could be up for grabs. The Air Force is conducting separate efforts to replace up to 70 EF-18A <\/b>Hornets, and in June the service signed a contract to replace its 20 oldest platforms<\/a> based in the Canary Islands with 16 Eurofighter Typhoon Tranche 4 aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the wider Hornet fleet has no replacement. Spanish Air Force officials told Defense News in November<\/a> that the choice lay between the Typhoon and the F-35. Those officials acknowledged that if their naval counterparts decide to procure the F-35B to replace the aging Harrier fleet, that opens up an opportunity to buy F-35As.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in an Aug. 26 email to Defense News, the Spanish Defence Ministry said an F-35 acquisition is not planned \u201cat this time,\u201d emphasizing that Madrid is firmly committed to the trinational FCAS program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Portugal, as an F-16 operator, could eventually opt for F-35s. But the government has not expressed much urgency to recapitalize its fleet, and could certainly choose a European platform, noted Darling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t preclude a Rafale or a Eurofighter sale here or there, but there are just very few markets left to pick up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United Kingdom\u2019s final fleet numbers also remain a wild card. While the program of record, per Lockheed Martin, is for 138 F-35Bs, London has purchased 48 aircraft to date and committed to 26 more this past spring, opening up doubts as to whether it will achieve its original goal.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Czech announcement shows there may be more Eastern European fleets to gun for, said Aboulafia. Romania has expressed interest in producing F-35s after 2030, according to a Euractiv report.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Greece in June filed an official letter of request to procure 20 F-35As by 2028<\/a>, and conversations are ongoing between country officials and Lockheed Martin, a company spokesperson said. However, Athens also ordered 24 Rafales from the French,<\/a> acquiring 18 aircraft in early 2021 and committing to six more in March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For its part, Greece has struggled to replace its aging fighter fleet for fiscal reasons, but eventually the nation will gain the more financial ability to place bigger orders, Aboulafia noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, he added, the question remains: \u201cWill they be for Rafales, or will they be for the F-35?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The aircraft arrived in Europe with pristine timing, as multiple nations were itching to refresh their fleets by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":116630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":46,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[75,160,29,46,11,12,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3420],"class_list":["post-61682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-force-association","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-europe","category-global","category-industry","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UDIP6IUQGBC6JDBC4QZZHFRFBM","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2022\/09\/04\/how-the-f-35-swept-europe-and-the-competition-it-could-soon-face\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/15_europe_secondaryArt.jpg.jpg\")
European ambitions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Next steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n