European Commissioner for Defense Andrius Kubilius, against the background of the failure of the German-French project to create a new generation European fighter aircraft FCAS, acknowledged the lack of successful pan-European defense projects.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced earlier the decision agreed with President Francois Emmanuel Macron to terminate the joint FCAS project. According to Jordan Bardella, the leader of the French right-wing National Unification party, which Marine Le Pen represents in parliament, this is a failure of Franco-German cooperation and Macron personally.
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“In the field of defense, I can hardly remember at least one successful project. FCAS is part of this sad tradition. It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to bring pan-European defense projects to a successful conclusion,” Kubilius said in an interview with the German magazine Spiegel.
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Speaking about the increase in German investments in the production of weapons, which is criticized by both a number of EU countries and the citizens of the country themselves, Kubilius noted that defense spending should not further divide Europe – it needs a pan-European defense market in which all EU member states, not just Germany, will actively participate. The European commissioner said it was time for Europe to discuss its own defense union, a kind of “coalition of the willing,” which, in addition to the EU member states, could include Ukraine, Great Britain, Norway, and possibly Turkey.
