German greens to block sales of Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia


Danielle Sheridan
Wed, 27 September 2023 

Eurofighter Typhoon military fighter jets

Germany’s Green Party has indicated it will not approve a deal for Britain to sell dozens of Typhoon fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.

‌Sara Nanni, the party’s defence spokeswoman, told The Telegraph that Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, would not receive the backing of Robert Habeck, economy minister, or Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister, to approve the sale of the 48 Eurofighter planes.

‌“In my opinion he won’t get that,” Ms Nanni said.

‌Both Mr Habeck and Ms Baerbock are Green politicians and belong to Germany’s Federal Security Council, which is required to sign off on potential arms exports.

‌The deal to sell the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets to Ryiadh was initially signed by the UK government in March 2018.

‌However, because the jet was jointly developed by a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies under Nato’s watch in the 1980s, the consent of all four nations is required to export the planes.

‌Ms Nanni, whose party has its roots in pacifism, pointed out that the German cabinet agreed as recently as July not to sell fighter jets to Riyadh and said she expected the country’s coalition government to stick to this commitment.

‌A spokesman for the German Economy Ministry also referred the Telegraph to remarks made by Mr Scholz at July’s Nato summit in Vilnius in which he stated “no decision on Eurofighter deliveries to Saudi Arabia is foreseeable at the current time.”

‌Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has personally urged Mr Scholz to sign off on the arms deal, which is worth at least £5 billion.

‌It is unclear what the German chancellor’s own position on the issue is.

German ministers Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck - CLEMENS BILAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

‘Black mark against the UK’

‌While the plane is designed and manufactured by BAE Systems in Lancashire, a third of its components are built at sites in Germany.

‌Berlin imposed a ban on exporting weapons to Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom’s agents killed Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and critic of Crown Prince Mohammed, in 2018.

Germany’s three-way coalition later committed itself in 2021 to delivering no arms to states involved in the civil war in Yemen.

But, since a UN-brokered ceasefire in Yemen was agreed, Berlin appears to have softened its stance.

Mr Scholz said in July that the clause in the coalition agreement was “no longer a guiding principle” due to the fact that the situation in Yemen had calmed down.

The chancellor met Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi earlier this month.

While it is not clear what the two leaders discussed, Germany is seeking new energy partners after ending its reliance on Russian gas.

In a sign of rapprochement between Berlin and Riyadh, Mr Scholz visited the Saudi capital a year ago.

Justin Bronk, an airpower researcher at the RUSI defence think tank, said that “not securing the sale would be a black mark against the UK” in terms of its reputation as a reliable arms partner.