{"id":6540,"date":"2026-07-07T07:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/6540\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:53:09","slug":"nato-to-acquire-up-to-10-saab-globaleyes-for-e-3-replacement-says-secretary-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/6540\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO to acquire “up to” 10 Saab GlobalEyes for E-3 replacement, says Secretary General"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANKARA \u2014 NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said today that a number of allies have jointly decided to acquire a fleet of Swedish-produced GlobalEye<\/a> Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWACS) aircraft to replace aging E-3 Sentry surveillance planes.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we are announcing the joint procurement of up to 10 Saab GlobalEyes,\u201d Rutte told the NATO defence industry forum here. <\/p>\n

Addressing the event, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson added that the planned procurement, \u201cis a moment of great pride for Sweden and even prouder for what it entails for NATO. By 2027, we will see these GlobalEyes operating from Swedish bases.\u201d <\/p>\n

Selection of a European solution, which falls under the alliance\u2019s initial Allied Future Surveillance and Control (iAFSC) project, comes five months after a group of allies walked away<\/a> from a planned buy of Boeing E-7A Wedgetail<\/a> aircraft, due to the loss of \u201cstrategic and financial foundations.\u201d<\/p>\n

NATO had initially committed to buy six E-7s under the former iAFSC plan but ditched the idea after the Trump administration revealed that it planned to cancel the program. (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has since reversed course<\/a>, following strong pushback from lawmakers.)<\/p>\n

In light of the allies scrapping the Wedgetail plan, Saab CEO Micael Johansson told Breaking Defense<\/a> in November that NATO\u2019s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) \u201chas looked into this [future AWACS operations with GlobalEye] now and they have concluded that this capability will fill a gap if you use it in a proper way.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the time, he also said that Saab could meet NATO\u2019s planned operational target of 2031 for the E-3 successor. Additionally, speaking to potential production plans, he noted that Saab is \u201cinvesting to deliver more [GlobalEye] aircrafts per year from the Swedish hub,\u201d in Gothenburg, alongside potential support from French aviation maintenance and modification provider Sabena Technics.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s announcement had been expected after French business outlet La Lettre<\/a> first reported the purported Gripen selection had been decided back in April. At the time, however, neither NATO nor Saab confirmed such a move.<\/p>\n

The alliance\u2019s selection also comes after Canada said in May that it had opened talks with Saab<\/a> to negotiate a planned GlobalEye acquisition.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Europe, Paris finalized a deal to buy two GlobalEye aircraft, valued at 12.3 billion Swedish Kroner ($1.3 billion), in December. \u201cThere is an option for another two in that contract that we\u2019re discussing,\u201d Johansson said in April. Regarding other potential exports, he said Germany and Poland have both shown \u201cinterest.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Saab company literature, the aircraft is designed to offer airborne, maritime and ground surveillance within a single platform, chiefly through integration of a new Erieye ER (Extended Range) radar capable of operating in \u201csevere clutter and\u00a0jamming environments<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANKARA \u2014 NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said today that a number of allies have jointly decided to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[641,3748,4113,47,643,3538,7,3369,136],"class_list":["post-6540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-air-force","tag-boeing","tag-e-7","tag-europe","tag-global","tag-globaleye","tag-nato","tag-saab","tag-sweden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}