At midnight, the deadline given by the US State Department to Israel to formally send its reply to its demand to remove all non-American technology from planes supposed to be sold to the Croatian Air Force expired. According to Israeli sources, Israel will probably not even send its reply to the Americans, reports Večernji List on January 5, 2019.
Sources believe that the issue was largely closed after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Brazil at the inauguration of the new President Javier Bolsonar and said that Israel was not prepared to remove from the F-16s Israeli equipment, de facto confirming that he could not deliver to Croatia the configuration it wanted.
Although no one expects any miracles that would change the US position, the government will formally wait for the deadline given to Israel, which is that by next Friday, January 11, it should inform Croatia whether it can deliver a combat squadron which won the Croatian tender for the purchase of multi-purpose combat aircraft in March 2018.
Croatia will not delay the formal annulment of the tender. This step is necessary so that it can be decided relatively quickly what to do next. The failure of a deal with Israel is not just a matter for Defence Minister Damir Krstičević, but for Croatia, which now has to find another way to save the Croatian Air Force.
Due to 15-year delays in the acquisition of a new squadron and the unsuccessful overhaul of the current MiGs 21s in Ukraine, the Croatian Air Force (HRZ) today has on average just three to four fully functional aircraft, which is a minimum. If the HRZ’s capacity is further impaired, Croatia will have no other choice but to notify NATO’s command of its inability to control its skies and request that the responsibility is taken over by the air force of one of the neighbouring member states.
The government will have to decide whether to announce a new tender or negotiate directly. It is estimated that the process of public competition would take a minimum of one year for a new decision to be reached. Realistically, the contract could not be signed before the end of 2020. Given that the US government supports the modernisation of the Croatian Air Force, it is expected that the USA could offer alternative solutions that would be relatively fast and would be affordable to Croatia.
More news on the Croatian military can be found in our Politics section.
Translated from Večernji List (reported by Davor Ivanković, Sandra Veljković).
