Jul. 9, 2012 - 06:18AM | By TOM KINGTON
ROME — Italy’s newly released Defense Ministry budget for 2012 reveals that a number of key procurement programs are to be slowed as spending cuts announced last year begin to bite.
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The upgrading of Italian mine-sweepers is moved back from 2014 to 2018, while the full delivery of
Army and Navy NH90 helicopters is pushed from 2018 to 2021. New combat search-and-rescue AW101 helicopters for the Air Force will be fully delivered by 2017, not 2014.
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Total Defense Ministry spending this year stands at 13.61 billion euros ($16.75 billion), down 5.2 percent from 2011, and equal to 0.84 percent of Italy’s gross domestic product.
After years of taking the brunt of cuts, Italy’s maintenance and operations spending receives a 5.4 percent top-up to reach 1.52 billion euros, but the spending document warns that funding is still “insufficient,” and that if the situation does not improve, Italy could find it hard to meet overseas deployment commitments.
Personnel spending also is stable at 9.6 billion euros, leaving procurement to suffer the entire burden of the cut, which was decided last year as Italy scrambled to reduce its budget deficit. Spending on procurement stands at 2.48 billion euros, down by 28.2 percent.
The regular top-up from Italy’s Ministry of Industry amounts to 1.3 billion euros this year, with another 375 million euros starting to be freed for procurement from funds officially earmarked for military missions.
But the total still falls far short of 2011 spending. Defense Minister Giampaolo di Paola has said that combining all funding, Italy’s defense spending this year reaches 0.92 percent of GDP, well below the European average.
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The spending document reveals some programs have been accelerated.
The upgrade of Mangusta attack helicopters — with new sighting systems to facilitate the adoption of Spike missiles — is moved forward from 2017 to 2014....
The document also lists the launch of the development of “onboard systems to equip the MC-27J destined to support Special Forces.” The MC-27J is the gunship version of the C-27J airlifter, planned by maker Alenia Aermacchi, a unit of Finmeccanica.
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