During a lightning visit to the Farnborough Air Show on July 20, Italy’s defense minister confirmed that Italy would cut its planned purchase of Eurofighters by 25 aircraft.

Ignazio La Russa said that by purchasing 96 aircraft instead of the originally planned 121, Italy would save 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion), part of a national debt reduction plan that Italy is pushing through to shore up its finances and reassure financial markets.

The 25 aircraft form the final Tranche 3B of the planned aircraft order for which the Eurofighter partners have yet to sign.

La Russa also confirmed that instead of buying 10 FREMM frigates as planned, Italy will initially buy six and seek to export the others. Brazil is currently seen as a possible customer.

Italian chief of staff Gen. Vincenzo Camporini, who joined La Russa at the air show, said a more pressing problem for the Italian armed forces was ongoing cuts to maintenance and operations funding, which observers say have hurt training and readiness.

“This is the toughest problem I have and I intend to rationalize the system so that all the duplications are eliminated,” Camporini said. “Each service is currently responsible for its own maintenance and I would like to have services which use the same helicopter, for instance, to combine efforts.”