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Germany, Britain close to Eurofighter deal: press BERLIN (AFP) Oct 14, 2004 Germany and Britain are close to sorting out their differences over a second batch of Eurofighter jet aircraft, the Handelsblatt newspaper said Thursday, in an advance extract of its Friday edition. Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain have ordered a total of 620 Eurofighter aircraft in three tranches from a consortium made up of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co (EADS), BAE Systems of Britain and the Italian group Alenia. But Britain is the only one of the four buyers not to have signed the approval for the next wave because it wants production slowed and plans for jets with precision weapons to be brought forward, according to recent reports. Handelsblatt said none of the countries were willing to go on the record on the deal but German government sources were "said to be very confident". The 19-year-old Eurofighter project, which is in competition with the US-made Joint Strike Fighter, has been beset by delays from the start. Germany has warned that any further delays will have a negative impact on the future of the Eurofighter programme, especially in Germany where 1.12 billion euros (1.39 billion dollars) have been earmarked for the project in this year's budget but not in the 2005 budget. All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
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