A joint French-German fighter hangs in the balance. Berlin and Paris are considering abandoning the project

Germany and France are considering abandoning the plan to build a new-generation fighter worth EUR 100 billion, which was supposed to be their leading joint defense project, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing officials from both countries.

The British daily wrote that Europe's largest weapons program, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), “is on the verge of collapse because Airbus and Dassault Aviation cannot agree on how to build the next generation of fighters.” The new machines were to replace French Rafale fighters and German and Spanish Eurofighters from 2040.

As sources revealed, the negotiation table includes narrowing cooperation to the construction of the so-called tactical cloud, an interface that would connect fighter jets and their pilots with sensors, radars and drones, as well as land and sea command systems. Its goal “is to increase the capabilities of the EU armed forces by using artificial intelligence to quickly process large amounts of data and is the result of cooperation between the German defense branch of Airbus, the French Thales and the Spanish Indra,” we read in the newspaper.

According to the FT, “if the plan to build a fighter together is abandoned, focusing on the cloud would allow the countries to continue some form of cooperation.” The interlocutors emphasized that a decision on this matter had not been made yet.

The future of FCAS is to be the subject of a conversation between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday in Berlin.

From London Marta Zabłocka (PAP)

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