In July 2009 the inter-ministerial committee reported to the Italian parliament on the government’s longterm defence plan. These draft plans envisaged the total size of the armed forces dropping from 186,000 to some 141,000 by 2012. The bulk of these cuts will fall on the army, which will lose many of its shortterm contracted professional soldiers. The committee recommended a major re-structuring of the Italian armed forces, based around the eventual equal balancing of spending on procurement and personnel. The army will bear the brunt of structural changes under the proposals and it is unlikely it will be able expand to a 12 deployable brigade structure from the current structure of 11 brigades. It is unclear yet how this will impact on the ambitions of the Italian army to convert its brigades into medium weight units capable of global rapid reaction missions. It is believed that if the package of changes is agreed it would have a major impact on the capacity of the Italian military to play a role on the world stage and could force the government to be more cautious about committing troops to international missions.

Long-term budget trends have led to renewed speculation that several major equipment programmes could come under threat. These include delays to the Freccia medium infantry fighting vehicle; cancellation of the replacement of the Atlantique maritime patrol aircraft; the new national airborne early warning aircraft and the land attack batch of the Bergamini-class frigates, which are being built in cooperation with France under the Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM) programme. Budget pressures this year have already forced Italy to withdraw from the NATO C-17 Strategic Airlift Component programme.

However, the Italian air force received a major boost on July 31 when the four Eurofighter partner nations signed the Tranche 3A contract. This will see Italy buy 21 Tranche 3 Typhoon aircraft for delivery by 2013, as part of an umbrella contract that will see 112 aircraft delivered to the partner nations. The second phase, known as Tranche 3B, is due to be signed by 2012 and will cover the final phase of Typhoon assembly as well as possible upgrade paths. Yet threatened budget cuts mean it is unlikely that the Italian air force will receive all of its 121 Typhoon aircraft.

In July Alenia Aeronautica pulled out of negotiations with the Romanian government to buy a controlling stake in the Avioane Craiova aerospace venture. Italian defence giant Finemaccanica was more successful in its bid to find new partners in Eastern Europe in August when it announced a US$114.9mndeal to take a 93% stake in the Polish helicopter and aircraft systems company, PZL Swindnik. The Polish company already makes components for AgustaWestland’s AW139, AW109 and AW119 helicopters and the new operation will be even more closely integrated into Finmeccanica’s helicopter subsidiary. Airframe manufacturing work for AW101 helicopters is expected to be among the first items of work transferred to the Polish site, after the deal is completed later this year. The takeover of the Polish company is part of a continuing trend by Western European aerospace companies to move component manufacturing to Eastern European sites. In the helicopter sector, EADS subsidiary Eurocopter already has a tie-up with Romanian rotor craft manufacturer IAR.