Patriot missiles to be delivered to Switzerland at a later date
Published: Tuesday, Jun 18th 2024, 15:50
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The USA will not be supplying Patriot missiles to Switzerland for the time being. Ukraine will be supplied with the missiles first. According to the Federal Office of Armaments, it is unclear how long Switzerland will have to wait for the delivery.
Deliveries of the type of missile in question to Switzerland will be delayed by a decision of the US government and will probably not be able to take place as planned, the Federal Office of Armaments (Armasuisse) announced on Tuesday at the request of Keystone-SDA. The newspaper "Blick" initially reported on this on Tuesday
However, it is not yet possible to say anything about the exact impact on deliveries destined for Switzerland. According to Armasuisse, the affected type of Patriot ground-based air defense system is the PAC3 MSE guided missile version, which was approved by Parliament with the 2023 Armed Forces Dispatch, and not the PAC2 GEM-T version procured with the 2022 Armed Forces Dispatch.
The introduction date for the additional type of missile stated in Armed Forces Dispatch 23 was 2030 and 2031, and procurement was planned accordingly. The situation shows that "Switzerland needs its own strong armaments industry again and we need to diversify our procurement among manufacturers and countries", Armasuisse continued.
According to the agreements signed with Washington in the fall, deviations from the agreed conditions can be made if there are unusual or compelling reasons and if US national security concerns are affected, as "Blick" went on to write.
©Keystone/SDA
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