Parliament fixed the F-35 price again. It was never fixed to begin with.

The number that read like a promise

In September 2022 the Federal Council asked Parliament for a commitment credit of CHF 6.035 billion for 36 F-35A jets¹. On paper, a figure like that reads as a price.

I read numbers like that for a living. When a headline figure is presented as fixed, the first thing I do is find the clause that lets it move – an indexation line, a raw-material pass-through, a quantity that can be cut.

In my own deals I have watched a “fixed” price hold only until the clause beneath it was triggered. The number stays put until someone reduces the quantity or an input cost resets. My question in 2022 would have been plain: did anyone in Bern read this the way I would read a term sheet?

What the oversight report actually found

The earlier government communication had the F-35 at CHF 5.068 billion for 36 jets, inside the 6 billion ceiling and inflation included². Defence minister Viola Amherd’s public line was that the jet had the highest overall benefit, was “clearly the cheapest,” and would be bought “at a fixed price of 6 billion”³.

On 8 September 2026 the parliamentary oversight body found that Switzerland was never offered a binding fixed price. What existed was a “fixprice clause” – part of the tender, not a guaranteed lump sum – and the VBS should not have called it fixed⁴⁵.

Per the NZZ, the underlying document was one both sides merely “took note of,” its legal force never confirmed⁶. A clause, not a price.

The same report put the bill for the original 36 jets at CHF 7.1 billion instead of 6, against an inflation-adjusted ceiling of 6.4 billion⁷⁸.

CHF 7.1 billion · what the oversight report says the original 36-jet order actually costs, against the CHF 6 billion ceiling voters approved (parliamentary oversight report, 8 September 2026⁷)

Two things the report does not settle

I cannot close two gaps from the public record. I found no source establishing whether the 7.1 billion already nets out the 394 million just approved, or sits alongside it.

And no document I found breaks the gap between 6 and 7.1 billion into line items – jets, munitions, infrastructure, training.

On who signed it off: the report says Amherd and the then-chiefs of the armament office should never have assumed a fixed price⁵. But it stops at those roles and the institutions, the VBS and the Federal Council, and names no single official as the one who put the clause to Parliament as a price.

Who defends jets, who defends price

Here the expected script flips. In March 2026 the Federal Council dropped the 36-jet plan and asked instead for CHF 394 million to cover higher costs from inflation and raw materials⁹¹⁰.

Pfister said the money would still buy only 30 to 35 jets; the VBS later firmed that to around 30¹¹¹².

Then the parties that usually guard the budget did the opposite. On 7 September the security committee’s SVP and FDP members voted as a bloc to lift the credit from 394 million to CHF 1.044 billion – roughly 650 million more – to keep all 36 jets¹³¹⁴.

Their case deserves its full weight. The sunk cost is already committed; voters approved a fleet, and cutting to 30 hollows out the capability the money was voted for. On that logic, better to pay the escalation than to field two-thirds of a deterrent.

The centre and left took the other side: hold the number, accept fewer jets. The plenary decided it in two votes.

1. It rejected the 650-million top-up, 102 to 89¹⁵¹⁶.
2. It approved the 394-million supplement, 128 to 62 with five abstentions; no referendum is possible¹⁷¹⁸.

The Council of States’ commission had already framed the 394 million as the minimum to reach “at least 30” jets and use up the envelope voters approved¹⁹.

Read the way I read a deal, price discipline here tracked who owns the sunk cost more than the headline figure.

The 2021 objection nobody reopened

None of this round’s evidence touched the argument that started the procurement. The 2021 evaluation gave the F-35 336 points on overall benefit, 95 or more ahead of the next candidate²⁰²¹, across four weighted criteria: effectiveness 55%, product support 25%, cooperation 15%, offset 5%²².

I went looking for the level below that. I found no public document breaking the score down to flight-performance sub-criteria such as climb rate or turn radius; the short report and the FAQ give the four categories, not the internal matrix.

The Greens’ 2021 paper argued the F-35 was ill-suited to Swiss topography – slower to climb, less agile than its rivals²³. That argument is about whether the jet fits the mountains.

The oversight report was about price. The 15 September vote was about price. The suitability question got no hearing this round at all.

I also put the upstream questions to the record – whether armasuisse’s evaluation was swayed, whether Ruag or the then army chief shaped the type choice, whether a named legal adviser sat behind the fixed-price language. I found no document placing Ruag or the army chief as decision-makers in the choice²⁴, and none naming a law firm in the contract²⁵. So I leave those as questions, not claims.

The argument that keeps getting settled

I looked for a precedent: another Swiss arms programme with an official audit diagnosing the same shape – a ceiling sold as fixed, then a run of top-up credits against it. I found none set out that plainly in the public record²⁶.

Bern has now settled the price argument on the F-35 for the third time this decade. It has never once reopened the argument about whether the plane fits Swiss mountains.

This is an observation from my desk. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a call on how anyone should vote or act.