Germany Delays MBDA Contract To Replace Patriot Anti-Aircraft Missile System By MEADS

Germany will delay $4.5 billion ($4 billion Euro) contract with MBDA to replace its Patriot anti-aircraft missile system by Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS).

Germany’s defense ministry would not complete the contract during the current legislative period, as planned, unnamed ministry sources were quoted as saying by Reuters.

Ministry officials remain committed to concluding a contract with MBDA for the MEADS but said there was still work to do on MBDA proposal, as well as how the overall project would be managed, the sources said.

The deal for MEADS had been approved by Volker Wieker, Chief of staff of the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces in June 2015. This would have been the first major procurement decision by Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen since taking office in late 2013.

Regardless of the MEADS outcome, the ministry also plans to spend several hundred million euros to modernize the software and hardware of the German military's existing Patriot system, which was built by Raytheon, the sources said.

A second multi-billion euro program to build a new multi-role ship has also been delayed.