Eurofighter – will there be cut-price ex-partner aircraft for sale?

I understand that the basic deal between the Eurofighter partner countries was that if any partner wanted to reduce its allocation of aircraft there would be severe financial penalties. From what I read Spain still wants the number of Eurofighters allocated; I’m not sure about Germany’s position at the moment; UK and Italy appear to want to reduce the number of Eurofighters they take.

Whatever the Eurofighter price is to export customers (just the aircraft itself – no spares etc), it is reported to be higher than that of F/A-18 and Rafale. It seems to me that some Eurofighter partner nations may be tempted to dispose of some of their current “low mileage, one careful owner” aircraft at a knock down price to avoid the financial penalties associated with failing to take their full allocation of tranche 3 aircraft. This could create problems for Dassault, Boeing and (perhaps) SAAB. A potential customer might be offered second-hand Eurofighters at a price where the other manufacturers – supplying new aircraft – could not hope to compete. In that situation, would there even be any point in them responding to a request for prices? They would know that however low the price of the aircraft they offered, the price of Eurofighters on offer could always be lowered to undercut them. Another advantage in favour of second-hand Eurofighters – it takes a lot less time to deliver aircraft that have already been built than it takes to produce aircraft that do not exist when an order is placed. Eurofighter would have an advantage where the customer country was in a hurry to secure fighters.

Any thoughts how this might pan out, anyone? I can see France, Sweden and the USA being less than happy should the situation I describe come about.