Italy Cancels F-35 Ceremony After Bitter Parliament Debate

Following a bitter debate in Italy's parliament to scrap the procurement of 90 F-35 jets, Lockheed Martin has called off a public ceremony marking the opening of an assembly plant for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The ruling coalition last month agreed to seek parliament's approval before going ahead with further spending on the program. An opposition motion in favor of abandoning the F-35 was defeated, according to Reuters.

Lockheed spokesman Joe LaMarca said the ceremony was cancelled at the request of the Italian defense ministry, but workers were continuing to assemble the first F-35 at the plant near Milan.

"At the request of the Italian Ministry of Defense, the July 18 public ceremony recognizing the start of F-35 assembly operations at the Final Assembly and Checkout (FACO) facility in Cameri has been cancelled," LaMarca said.

Italy plans to spend $15.43 billion on the jets over 45 years, starting in 2015.

The deal includes maintenance contracts for state-controlled defense group Finmeccanica, as Italy's aerospace industry is a development partner in the F-35 project and Italy has already invested about 2 billion euros in it, the report added.

Last year, Italy cut its F-35 order to 90 warplanes from the 131 it had originally agreed to buy, a move it said would save 5 billion euros as it sought to reduce defense spending to shore up its accounts during the economic slump.