Eurofighter Flies Into Stormier Skies Bonns Budget Battle Puts

Theo Waigel, the finance minister, has abandoned a proposal to delay for one year an increase in childrens allowances and decided not to modify the wealth tax after failing to reach agreement with the opposition Social Democrats, who control the upper house of parliament.

This has forced him to rethink his fiscal arithmetic for 1997, making further budget cuts more likely. Eurofighter has been attacked as unnecessary by the SPD, and as too expensive by others, including the FDP, the junior partner in the government coalition.

The chances of the project collapsing are as close as I have ever known them to be, says Heinz Schulte, a leading defence analyst based in Bonn.

 

Just a few months ago there was a 70:30 chance that the Eurofighter would come. Now that has slipped to 52:48. For months now Volker Ruhe, Germanys defence minister, has been telling Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa), Germanys main contractor on the