“Germany could abandon the €100 billion fighter aircraft project with France.” This is the headline published today, Wednesday, by major British newspapers. timesrepresents a storm for the future combat air system program (FCAS, for its abbreviation in English). The country is now committed equally with France and Spain to replacing existing fleets of combat aircraft with a new generation system Eurofighter Germans, Spaniards and Rafale French, with 2040 on the horizon. Other British media,TelegraphIt later published Berlin’s rejection on this point, confirming its continuation of the project allocated to Paris and Madrid, for which it is estimated that Germany will allocate 40 thousand million euros.
the program FCAS It plans to conduct the first tests of the new generation of combat aircraft in 2029 (NGF) which constitutes the basic pillar of the initiative. A year ago, the three partners strengthened their commitment to an agreement to break the deadlock that had struck them after months of disagreements between the French company Dassault pilotwhich leads the industrial part of its country, and Airbuswith the same role in Germany, due to the distribution of the workload, and under the watchful eye Indraa partner from the Spanish side.
Recently, last September, doubts about the continuity of this process returned FCAS Because of French plans to modernize its fighter aircraft Rafalewhich may lead you to obtain capabilities similar to those available in FCAS A decade ago and at a lower cost.
The French expectation of completing the development of its combat aircraft after it had begun a joint program with other countries is reminiscent of what happened at that time with combat aircraft. Eurofighter. This program began in 1983 with France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain as partners. But finally, in 1985, after various disagreements deriving mainly from the need of the French to have a version deployable on aircraft carriers (as happened with FCAS), prompted Paris to undertake a separate program, which led to the development of the current Rafale. Currently, however, France is spending $1,300 million on this project FCAS For the next four years.
Meanwhile, the UK is advancing with its partners Japan and Italy in its global combat air program (“Global Appeal against Poverty”.), a direct competitor to FCAS. This program is what Germany is now considering joining, if it abandons its current commitments with France and Spain, becoming the fourth partner in addition to the three mentioned partners.
It turns out that Berlin is preventing the sale of at least 48 aircraft to Saudi Arabia Eurofighter More (it already has 72) are led by its partner the UK in this other programme, in reference to the human rights issues that have cast a shadow over the Saudi regime. At this point, Germany may end up lifting its veto, which France is now trying to exploit Rafale As an alternative, while Berlin is considering an agreement with the United Kingdom on its accession to the European Union “Global Appeal against Poverty”.According to the information he collected times Which Telegraph He points out that Germany denies it.
One program
Many specialists have been warning for years about the difficulties of implementing two projects related to sixth-generation fighter aircraft in Europe. In this way, the unity paper in one program has been used on numerous occasions, something that even the French Senate came to collect, in the 2020 report, which is essential to be able to maintain levels of competitiveness over other developments, despite and at the same time They pointed out the limited possibilities to reach an agreement in this area. What has hardly been thought about until now is that one initiative will end up stalling the other and leaving it practically alone on the board. This is what can happen, as can be deduced from the information timesThe medium, we must remember, is purely British.
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