Denmark Wants NATO Air Cover As It Has No Money To Fly

Dutch, German and Norwegian fighter planes must protect Danish airspace, so that Denmark itself can get its financial affairs in order.

Danish Defence Minister Nick Haekkerup on Saturday in an interview with the Danish newspaper Politiken. “Just as we arrange the air defence of the Baltic states today, our NATO neighbours can do it for Denmark in the future.”

Copenhagen will decide on a successor to the country’s current thirty F-16 fighter jets in 2018. Like the Netherlands, the Danes eye the Joint Strike Fighter, but currently Denmark has no money for the purchase of an estimated EUR 1.5 to 2 billion for about twenty new aircraft. | © 2011 Marcel Burger for ANP News Agency (original published in Dutch on 15 October 2011)