Airbus
The Future Combat Air System, FCAS. It’s already past.
France and Germany abandoned the plan to jointly build a new generation fighter, due to deep industrial differences. The death of FCAS is a serious blow to Emmanuel Macron’s vision of greater European integration in the field of defense.
It was one: the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), a joint military program between France, Germany and Spain to develop the European sixth-generation fighter, is an issue officially closed.
The collapse of the project, initially reported by , highlights the difficulty of get European countries to cooperate in complex and expensive multinational programs, despite concerns about Russia’s deterrence and the reliability of the alliance with the United States.
“President Emmanuel Macron and Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz came to the common conclusion that companies involved will not be able to understand each other to build a joint fighter. They recognize this reality,” he told a German government official, speaking anonymously.
“The Federal Chancellor Merz therefore advised President Macron not to pursue the development of a joint fighter”, added the official.
The FCAS project, launched in 2017, had been blocked for some time due to strong divergences between French Dassault and Airbus Defense and Space, from Germany, on which of the companies should lead the program.
The new sixth generation fighter should replace, around 2040, the fighters Germany’s Eurofighter and France’s Rafale.
The program, which also involves Spain, includes a combat aircraft (the main one) as well as drones and a “combat cloud”the digital backbone of the project, aimed at connecting sensors, satellites, drones and fighters into a single system.
The Élysée acknowledged, in a statement, that Airbus Defense and Space and Dassault Aviation were unable to reach an agreement.
The French Presidency made it clear that the decision to abandon the project came from unilaterally from Germanytelling journalists that “German authorities concluded that no more pressure could be exerted on the companies in question”.
“France continues to consider that the Franco-German cooperation is essential for both countries and for our European partners in the field of defense and security”, reads the statement.
Despite the failure of the fighter component in FCAS, the German Government official did not exclude the possibility of Paris and Berlin continue to work together on drones and the combat cloud system.
A slow death
FCAS is not the only multinational defense program in trouble. In recent years, the joint plans of France and Germany to build maritime patrol aircraft, a new-generation tank and artillery systems suffered setbacks, while the rival Global Combat Air Program project, led by Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, have also faced friction.
France effectively moved away from the Eurodrone programworth several billion euros and involving four countries, leaving its future uncertain, while the remaining partners (Germany, Italy and Spain) evaluate how to move forward.
The end of the fighter component of FCAS It wasn’t a sudden breakbut the result of a slow and exhausting dispute between Airbus and Dassault Aviationtwo of the most influential European defense companies.
The impasse worsened last summer when Dassault, manufacturer of the French Rafale fighter, pushed to take the lead of the construction of the FCAS fighter.
A Airbus would be treated as a subcontractorwith limited access to the device’s design, while Dassault could choose suppliersdecide the distribution of work on the project and act as the sole interlocutor with clients.
Airbus rejected this approachconsidering it a fundamental break with the joint agreement that gave rise to FCAS, and argued that it would transform a European cooperation program into a French-led fighter, financed and supported by the industrial skills of Germany and Spain.
In September, Berlin began to analyze other options, including a possible , or joining the rival GCAP program.
In addition to the industrial dispute, Paris and Berlin also differed regarding the weight of the fighter: France wanted a lighter devicesuitable for aircraft carriers, while Germany defended a heavier model, dedicated to missions air superiority.
Berlin ended up proposing the construction of two planes, a hypothesis rejected by Paris. In March, Merz and Macron agreed to give the project a hand, but these talks failed to overcome the deep differences.
This Monday, the German chancellery informed Airbus the decision to put an end to the project. According to , Merz is expected to make the decision official on Wednesday, at the opening of the ILA aeronautical show, in Berlin.
