Joint Fighter Jet Project Collapses, Europe Faces Defence Dilemma

Anyone who wants to be taken seriously in the European defence industry attends Eurosatory, France’s largest defence trade fair held every two years. This week, the industry is once again showcasing its latest advances at the sprawling exhibition grounds in Villepinte, near Paris. More than 2,000 exhibitors are mingling with military officials, politicians, and industry players. With full order books, the mood should be more optimistic. European governments want to reduce their defence dependence on the United States and are investing hundreds of billions of euros to achieve that goal. Yet the prevailing optimism is now overshadowed by disappointment. Europe’s most ambitious defence project aimed at achieving greater strategic autonomy practically collapsed just days ago: Germany and France delivered what appears to be a fatal blow to their sixth-generation fighter jet programme. A core component of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) will ultimately not be built as a joint project. Is the failure of FCAS a crucial turning point? French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin avoided the topic in her opening speech on Monday. Nevertheless, there are growing signs that Paris and Berlin have not only reached a dead end on the fighter jet programme but also on a joint battle tank project. President Emmanuel Macron and former Chancellor Angela Merkel launched FCAS in 2017 as a response to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as US President. The fighter jet initiative was accompanied by a Franco-German tank programme known as the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS). Under the arrangement, France led the fighter jet project while Germany oversaw the tank programme. Since then, President Macron has repeatedly warned that if FCAS fails, MGCS could ultimately suffer the same fate. France and Germany shift from consensus to rivalry. Over the weekend, Armin Papperger, head of Germany’s largest defence company Rheinmetall, added to the uncertainty. Papperger told Welt am Sonntag that Paris is considering drastically cutting funding for the project, though he stressed no final decision has been made. ‘I take this warning very seriously,’ Ulrike Franke of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in Paris told German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. She added that the tank project has faced increasing difficulties and has progressed more slowly than FCAS from the outset. Meanwhile, the German Defence Ministry said Germany and France have agreed to continue developing MGCS with a ‘platform-independent’ approach, focusing on core elements of the programme. Whether this effectively renders the concept of a joint main battle tank irrelevant remains an open question, a ministry spokesman said on Monday. Franke sees several parallels with the failed fighter jet project. As in the combat aircraft programme, differing military requirements of the two countries complicate joint tank development. The German military prioritises maximum protection and high firepower to counter threats on NATO’s eastern flank, while France prefers a lighter, air-transportable tank for rapid intervention missions. The battle for technological leadership. The most striking similarity, however, lies within the defence industry itself, which German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius openly blamed for the collapse of FCAS. ‘At the government level, our hands are tied. The German and French governments were actually very keen to continue this project,’ Pistorius said. In the FCAS programme, French aerospace group Dassault Aviation was widely viewed as a difficult partner that politicians could not control. ‘From the start, not everyone was on the same wavelength,’ said Cedric Perrin, chairman of the French Senate Defence Committee. Lengthy disputes over intellectual property rights and project leadership ultimately turned into a battle for future technological dominance in the defence sector. A similar dilemma is emerging in the MGCS tank project. This time, the dominant player is not Dassault but Rheinmetall, Europe’s largest ammunition manufacturer. The project was originally designed to be led by the Franco-German joint venture KNDS, which combines Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France’s Nexter. However, Germany later succeeded in pushing for Rheinmetall’s involvement with strong political backing. The company aims to become Europe’s largest defence manufacturer by 2030. From the French perspective, Rheinmetall’s involvement has upset the previously fragile balance of power within the project. The rise of Rheinmetall. Rheinmetall has shown its impatience with the slow political process since Eurosatory four years ago, when it unexpectedly unveiled the Panther KF51 in Paris as an alternative to the joint MGCS tank project. The advanced system is now being aggressively marketed and is reportedly close to securing a major order from Italy. From a business standpoint, the move makes sense. However, it reduces the pressure to reach a compromise in the joint Franco-German project. On Monday, KNDS also introduced a tank for the French Army based on the Leopard 2 platform. The industrial problems do not stop with these two flagship projects. The Eurodrone programme, jointly developed by Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, is also facing hurdles. Cost increases and delays have slowed the project’s progress. Although the design phase is complete, doubts remain.