When JM Barroso dropped the Airbus A400M, out of friendship...

(BRUSSELS2) It was February 20, 2003. Portugal, then led by Prime Minister José-Manuel Barroso (now President of the European Commission), a fervent admirer of Georges Bush, ratifies in a new military programming law the reorientation of some of its expenditure, towards a purchase program more in line with the views of the American ally. The Airbus A400M - in which Portugal has participated from the start - is in the line of fire. Portugal suspends the purchase (3 planes) and its participation in the program. Barely a month later, the United States - aided by some of its allies - unleashed what is known as the Third Iraq War.

The official objective is to reduce expenditure

The Airbus A400M is " so expensive » that it is preferable to buy the Lockheed C130J (Super Hercules) then explains a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence. “The American competitors have presented us with an offer that allows us to buy double the number of planes”. One may have doubts about this accounting approach. Because, by withdrawing from the program, Portugal also renounces the counterparties for its small aeronautical industry (in the Airbus A400M consortium, the Portuguese had to design the fuselage design). What it gains in budgetary gain, it loses in industrial loss. In addition, this reorientation is accompanied by purchases of equipment, such as submarines, whose immediate usefulness seems futile if the objective is to straighten the accounts.

The reasons for this withdrawal are rather very political

It is above all a gesture to show all the loyalty of the new Portuguese government to the American ally. We are then in the middle of the Iraqi crisis which is causing a schism in Europe - not between the old Europe and the new Member States, nor between the moderns and the conservatives as has often been said, wrongly -, but between the Atlanticists - supporters of a great power policy - and supporters of a UN and European multinational policy (1). In the countries which produce the A400M the division is clear: Spain and the United Kingdom have sided with the Americans - joined by Italy and Portugal - while France, Germany, Belgium and even Turkey have expressed their reservations about this intervention (see Louis-Michel at the time). The Americans have also pressured the Italians (with success - as soon as Berlusconi came to power, Italy withdrew) as well as the British to withdraw from the program (the British resisted,
them !). They also try to put pressure by all means on the Germans and the French. In the American motivations, there are, of course, not only political reasons but of course industrial ones. This is an opportunity for some close to the Bush administration... and Lockheed to eliminate a notable competitor.

One of the first decisions of the new Portuguese government

The Portuguese decision to withdraw from the A400 program was taken, in fact, from the first days of the coalition government of the right (PSD - CSD) in May 2002. The Portuguese Minister of Defense, Paulo Portas (one of the leaders of the CSD) is also an inveterate Atlanticist. He is quite close to Bruce P. Jackson, a very active American lobbyist on the Iraqi affair, close to Dick Cheney (2)... and vice-president of Lockheed-Martin. At the Wehrkunde (the security conference) in Munich at the beginning of February 2003, the United States sought to isolate the Germans and the French. At the maneuver: the Portuguese Paulo Portas who apostrophizes the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, in the corridors evoking Munich, and the dangers of pacifism "dangerous in 1938, dangerous in the 1980s"and... Bruce Jackson who learnedly explains to journalists how isolated the Franco-Germans are in the face of the 18 states that have signed up for an intervention in Iraq (3).

So... the abandonment of the Airbus A400M by the Barroso-Porta team: a simple budgetary motivation, nobody really believes in it... But for Airbus, the cancellation of the Italian and Portuguese orders (19 planes) is a blow and even a deadweight loss that can be calculated at just over 2 billion euros! (which is equivalent to the current losses!).

(1) Among the "new ones": Cyprus, Malta and the Czech Republic did not sign the letter (President Havel in fact only signed in a personal capacity, a few days before his departure from the government, the letter of the 10). Sweden, Finland, Austria (entered the EU in 1995) are more categorical and for the continuation of inspections. Among the "old", Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Denmark are for the triggering of US intervention. In both camps there are social-democratic governments (United Kingdom), even ex-communists (Poland), and liberal or Christian-democratic governments.

(2) Former military intelligence agent (until 1990), he was also active in Bosnia and Croatia during the civil war. He worked for Lehman Brothers. Then he worked for the integration into NATO of the countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans at the head of the "US Committee on NATO" until 2002. He notably convinced Poland to equip itself with the F16 . He reiterated this type of political lobbying action with the "Committee of the Liberation of Iraq", a neoconservative circle which militated for the intervention in Iraq and was in particular, if not the inspiration ofs letters "of 8" and "of 10". For a fuller look at the character. Sacred BPJ

(3) Read "Allies at War" by Phillip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro

(Photo: European Commission)