German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron have decided to terminate a joint project to create a new generation fighter aircraft, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
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In May, Guillaume Faury, CEO of the European aircraft corporation Airbus, said that FCAS no longer meets modern realities and requires changes.
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“The project to create… the FCAS fighter, which has been discussed for many years, will be closed.… Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron have reached an agreement on this issue,” the statement said.
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Macron and Merz, during a meeting within the framework of the EU–Western Balkans summit in Montenegro, decided to terminate the project against the background of the fact that Airbus and the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation could not come to an agreement on the division of labor in the project and patent rights for developments.
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In light of the abandonment of FCAS, Dassault intends to continue its development of the French Rafale fighter. At the same time, Airbus is opening up opportunities for cooperation with other aircraft manufacturers, for example, with Swedish Saab, which manufactures Gripen fighters, or joining a joint project of Italy, Great Britain and Japan to create a sixth-generation fighter aircraft under the GCAP (Global Combat Air Program) program
At the same time, according to one of the sources, the leaders of the two countries agreed not to stop working on the common architecture of the FCAS Combat Cloud system, which involves the integration of both manned aircraft and drones into a single network. The defense departments of Germany and France are expected to prepare work plans and several joint projects in the field of armaments and present them at the German-French Council of Ministers, which will be held in mid-July.
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In February, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported, citing sources, that Berlin was considering joining a joint project between Rome, London and Tokyo to create a new combat aircraft under the GCAP program.
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The Future Combat Air System joint program was launched in 2017 to create a combat aircraft to replace the Rafale fighters used by France and the Eurofighter, which are in service with Germany and Spain.
