The Gripen uses US-built engines iirc so it’s still a problematic buy for Europeans.
it used to have a volvo engine but volvo aero got absorbed into a british conglomerate about 10 years ago.
point being, we can make the switch again.
The EU can (or rather, could) potentially make lots of things, the question is if there is sufficient political will to do it.
The Volvo one was a license built US engine.
If they want European the choice is the EJ200 that’s on the Eurofighter. It’s a little less powerful than the US one they’re using, probably why they choose the is one. But apparently has room to become more powerful if they take on additional design work.
i don’t know how much of the f404 was left in the rm12, it was pretty extensively modified.
No, that’s only the VTOL variant for the marines (F35B). The regular F35 uses P&Ws if I’m not mistaken.