Italy hopes that pooling maintenance will encourage users to send jets to its fledgeling F-35 maintenance hub at Cameri air base in the country's north.
Italy is lobbying France and Germany to back a plan for European tax breaks and financing for joint European defense procurement and development programs.
Fours year on from a NATO air campaign that triggered chaos in Libya, the country has grabbed headlines again as Islamic State fighters make a murderous debut alongside warring militias, rendering the return of stability ever more remote.