Despite polls which gave a clear advantage to supporters of the modernization of the Swiss Confederation's fighter fleet, the referendum held this Sunday, September 27 almost put an end to the hopes of the country's air forces. Indeed, if the "Yes" was finally retained , it was only by a very narrow majority of 50.1%, the motion in favor having obtained only 8,670 more votes, out of 3.2 million of votes cast, that the motion against. Due to this particularly small gap, it is likely that the opponents of this measure, first and foremost the Swiss Socialist Party which proposes a solution based on less expensive Italian M346 training aircraft as an alternative, will try to obtain again the 100,000 signatures necessary to trigger a new vote, and derail the continuation of the program.
The federal authorities will now be able to continue the Air 2030 program, which consists of a program for the acquisition of at least 40 modern combat aircraft in an envelope not to exceed 6 billion Swiss Francs (5.6 €bn / $6.5bn), and a CHF2bn program for the acquisition of a new anti-aircraft defense system. 4 aircraft are still in the running to replace the F5 and F18 of the Swiss air force, the Eurofighter Typhoon proposed by Germany, the Dassault Rafale proposed by France, the Boeing F/A 18 E/F Super Hornet and the Lockheed -Martin F-35A Lightning 2 proposed by the United States. Raytheon's Patriot system is opposed to the Franco-Italian SAMP/T Mamba system for the anti-aircraft component.
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