The People’s Party on Tuesday asked Minister Margarita Robles to appear before the House of Commons defense committee after ABC reported that the ministry had signed a manufacturing contract with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. … 45 new trainer aircraft for Spain’s fighter and attack pilots will be built to replace the current already aging F5 and T-38 aircraft, valued at more than 3 billion euros (specifically 3,120 aircraft). And, as this newspaper reported, it won the prize by hand, i.e. without competition.
Alberto Nuñez Feijó and others in the House of Representatives, led by Esther Muñoz, believe that Robles will need to explain the purchase of these new aircraft after a June 27 meeting between government president Pedro Sánchez and Turkish leaders. On Tuesday, the same day that the purchase of nearly 50 Turkish Hürjet aircraft, designed by the public defense company Turkish Aerospace Industries and currently in the development stage, i.e. not even manufactured, was revealed, Popular Aircraft also registered a series of eight questions about what they consider to be the central executive’s “last guidance operation.”
“We are going to ask many questions on this issue and the executive will have to answer them in this parliament,” warned the parliamentary PP spokesperson. no sooner said than done. The party presented an initiative calling for the government to answer in writing about the reasons for the acquisition, as more than 3 billion euros “doesn’t seem like an inconsequential amount of money that should not be passed through parliament.”
«What criteria did the government use to select the purchase of trainer aircraft from Türkiye? Was this acquisition made without a public tender? If so, on what criteria?” asks the popular, who also wants to know whether the purchase of 45 Hürjet aircraft “responds to the operational needs expressed by the Air Force or the Chief of the Defense Staff (JEMAD).”
In this sense, the PP also wants to find out why “normal selection procedures for this type of operation were not followed” in the Robles-led Ministry of Defence, such as public recruitment or aircraft model competitions. “Is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs aware that of the four aircraft called for in the contract, only two prototypes have so far been delivered and that Turkey should have entered into force?” people in Feij also asked after this newspaper reported that the Turkish government had not yet started building the plane and that only two are currently in active service, one of which landed at Torrejon air base for evaluation last year.
Influential figures have accused Moncloa of “unilaterally” acquiring 45 Huurjet jets after a meeting between Sanchez and Erdogan in June.
Additionally, the first equipment for the first customer, the Turkish Air Force, is not yet available, but the delivery date is scheduled for 2026. For the same reason, Feijo officials question whether the government believes the winning company, Turkish Aerospace Industries, is “in a position to provide Spain with the 45 trainer aircraft it has commissioned.”
Finally, PP wants to know: “Why has the cost of a project originally budgeted at 1.375 billion euros been increased to 3.12 billion euros by contract?”
In a letter obtained by the ABC, the PP thus accused the decision to have been taken “unilaterally” by the Ministry of Defence, led by Robles, adding that “there has been no formal request for proposals from competing candidates so far, nor any competitive process or technical and economic comparisons with other alternatives. In short, this is a ‘non-disclosed’ agreement between Sánchez and Erdoğan,” they added.
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