Reuters:
PARIS — The German government hopes to complete negotiations with European weapons maker MBDA and its U.S. partner, Lockheed Martin Corp about a multi-billion euro missile defense system by year-end, a ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
That would pave the way for the German parliament to review and approve the proposed contract in 2018, the spokesman said.
He said the future structure of the MDBA-Lockheed partnership was part of the negotiations about the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), which is to replace Germany’s Patriot air and missile defense system.
The ministry had told lawmakers in March that it remained committed to the program, but did not expect to complete work on the contract during the current legislative period. At the time, it said there was still work to do on the MBDA proposal, and how the overall project would be managed…
