Austria eyes German IRIS-T buy for nascent European ‘Sky Shield’

GRAZ, Austria — Austria will purchase eight IRIS-T air defense launchers following its recent accession to the European Sky Shield Initiative earlier this year, the country’s defense minister said in a press conference on Tuesday.

The systems will be purchased jointly with Germany, Austrian media reported, a step that the ministry said would help keep costs lower for both countries. Training is set to take place in Germany.

In a joint press conference between the Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner and the head of the Austrian air force, Gerfried Promberger, the countries announced that a draft memorandum of understanding would be submitted by Germany for Austrian review “in the coming weeks.”

According to the Austrian defense minister, ESSI founding members Estonia and Latvia signed such a memorandum on Monday, Austrian paper Der Standard reported on Tuesday.

Austria is planning on purchasing four systems with a short range of up to 15 kilometers and four additional medium-range systems that can hit targets up to 50 kilometers away, Promberger said.

Austria, Sweden and Switzerland joined Germany’s European Sky Shield Initiative in 2023 along with Denmark. The project was first announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in August of 2022, with an initial fifteen participants, all of whom are NATO members.

In light of the Ukraine war, this step was “absolutely necessary,” Tanner said.

The air-defense system built around the IRIS-T rocket, originally an air-to-air missile, is made by Diehl Defense and first tested in 2014, according to the company’s website.

No details were released on the proposed cost of Austria’s acquisition, with the ministry saying that this would depend on the outcome of negotiations. Formally, Germany will lead the negotiations and Austria will then purchase the eight systems from the German armed forces.

Tanner said money for the purchase would come from the buildup plan for ground-based air defense, which has a total volume of €2 billion, or $2.1 billion – though not all would be spent on the IRIS-T systems, she said. The ministry did not respond to Defense News’ request for comment by the end of the day Wednesday.

The Sky Shield initiative has in the past been the object of criticism, particularly by France and Italy, for relying too heavily on non-European parts and for ruling out the French-Italian SAMP-T system. While ESSI relies primarily on the German-made IRIS-T system for short and medium ranges, American and Israeli systems will be used for long-range air defense.

The Austrian defense ministry said they had no plans to purchase longer-range systems and said it expected the country would be covered by the air defense umbrella of fellow European states such as Germany.

In Austria, criticism has come particularly from the far-right Freedom Party, which criticizes becoming a member of ESSI as being incompatible with Austria’s legally enshrined “perpetual neutrality.”

Defense Minister Tanner said the criticism was “far-fetched,” noting that no legal experts had raised any such concerns now nor when a letter of intent was signed with Germany in July.

Additionally, “it’s not the first time that we are making joint procurements,” she said.

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

奥地利格拉茨——奥地利国防部长周二在新闻发布会上表示，奥地利将购买八套 IRIS-T 防空发射器，此前该国于今年早些时候加入了欧洲天空之盾倡议。

据奥地利媒体报道，这些系统将与德国联合采购。奥地利国防部表示，此举将有助于降低两国的成本。培训将在德国进行。

在奥地利国防部长克劳迪娅·坦纳和奥地利空军司令格弗里德·普罗姆伯格举行的联合新闻发布会上，两国宣布德国将在“未来几周内”向奥地利提交一份谅解备忘录草案供其审查。

据奥地利国防部长称，ESSI 的创始成员国爱沙尼亚和拉脱维亚于周一签署了这样一份备忘录，奥地利报纸《标准报》周二报道了此事。

普罗姆伯格表示，奥地利计划购买四套射程可达 15 公里的短程系统和四套射程可达 50 公里的中程系统。

奥地利、瑞典和瑞士于2023年与丹麦一起加入了德国的“欧洲天空之盾”倡议。该项目最初由德国总理奥拉夫·朔尔茨于2022年8月宣布，最初有15个参与者，全部都是北约成员国。

坦纳表示，鉴于乌克兰战争，这一步骤“绝对必要”。

据该公司网站介绍，以 IRIS-T 火箭（最初是一种空对空导弹）为核心的防空系统由 Diehl Defense 公司制造，并于 2014 年首次进行测试。

奥地利军需部并未公布此次采购的具体费用，称费用将取决于谈判结果。谈判将由德国主导，奥地利随后将从德国军方购买这八套系统。

坦纳表示，采购资金将来自总额为20亿欧元（约合21亿美元）的地面防空力量建设计划——不过她也指出，并非所有资金都会用于购买IRIS-T系统。截至周三结束，国防部尚未回复《防务新闻》的置评请求。

“天空之盾”计划过去曾饱受批评，尤其是来自法国和意大利的批评，批评其过度依赖非欧洲部件，并且排除了法意联合研制的SAMP-T系统。虽然ESSI计划主要依赖德国制造的IRIS-T系统进行中短程防空，但远程防空将采用美国和以色列的系统。

奥地利国防部表示，他们没有购买远程系统的计划，并表示预计该国将受到德国等欧洲其他国家防空保护伞的保护。

在奥地利，批评主要来自极右翼的自由党，该党批评加入 ESSI 与奥地利法律规定的“永久中立”不相容。

国防部长坦纳表示，这种批评“牵强附会”，并指出，无论是现在还是在7月份与德国签署意向书时，都没有任何法律专家提出过此类担忧。

此外，她还表示，“这并非我们第一次进行联合采购。”

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。