The Europlanes can take on most Russian threats-but they still don’t offer all that the Aussies need.Mainly long-range & payload.
Load of the EF is quite all right - but we don#t need range in europe. I guess they could have AESA if they wanted - but that would be extremely expensive.
Why don’t they grab some balls and start their own air&space programm ?
If the US acts like a girl with their stuff and the euopeans are too expensive - isn’t that kind of an opportunity to team up with BAE or anyone to build something that has extreme range, a monster radar and is a bit more spacy like a stupidhornet ?
A new F-111 ?
Or - hell why not take the Flanker and modify it.
They could go shopping then for the rest like AESA radar, Link hardware and weapons (Meteor and Taurus ;-).