Italy will push to have the US government fulfill a contract to buy presidential helicopters from an Italian-controlled company, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Tuesday.
''The contract has already been finalised. Now it's a question of fulfilling it and we're working to have it implemented,'' Frattini said on a visit to London.
''Delaying it is possible but I don't think we can give it up,'' Frattini said of the contract, whose spiralling costs have pushed delivery back from 2008 to 2010.
In the current climate of austerity, President Barack Obama is reportedly thinking of cancelling the contract for the new 'Marine One' copter, commissioned from British-Italian AugustaWestland and US partner Lockheed Martin, because of the delays and cost overruns.
The New York Times on Tuesday reported that the five-year contract costs had doubled from some $6.1 billion to $11.2 billion.
It also noted that one of the companies that lost out to Augusta Westland and Lockheed in 2005 was the Pentagon's supplier since the Eisenhower era, Sikorsky Aircraft, a firm with historic links to Obama's Democratic Party.
The contract originally called for delivery of the Italian-designed VH-71 helicopter last year.
The VH-71 is faster, safer and more powerful than the current generation, but costs as much as Air Force One.
The 2005 decision by the Pentagon, which is responsible for transporting the president, came at the end of an intense lobbying battle between the two groups.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi went to bat for the American-European consortium, in meetings with US President George Bush.
The new copter is a modified version of a helicopter already in use by the British Royal Navy and other European armed forces.
AugustaWestland is a division of the Italian corporation Finmeccanica.
Other partners in the American-European consortium include Bell Helicopter and Northrop Grumman Corp.
