BERLIN — France and Germany have abandoned a plan to jointly build a next-generation fighter jet over deep industrial disagreements — a major blow to French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision of closer European defense integration.
The collapse underscores the difficulty of getting European countries to cooperate on complex and expensive multinational programs, despite concerns about deterring Russia and about the reliability of the alliance with the United States.
“President [Emmanuel] Macron and the Federal Chancellor [Friedrich Merz] have come to the shared conclusion that the companies involved will not be able to come together to build a joint fighter jet. They acknowledge this reality,” a German government official told POLITICO on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“Federal Chancellor Merz has therefore advised President Macron not to pursue the development of a joint fighter jet any further,” the official added.
The project, known as the Future Combat Air System and launched in 2017, has stalled due to bitter disagreements between France’s Dassault and Germany’s Airbus Defence and Space over which company should take the lead on the project.
FCAS, which also involves Spain, is meant to replace Germany’s Eurofighter and France’s Rafale jets by around 2040. The program includes a warplane — the main point of contention — as well as drones and a combat cloud — the digital backbone of the project that will link sensors, satellites, drones and jet fighters into a single system.
Despite the failure of the jet fighter part of FCAS, the German government official didn’t rule out that Paris and Berlin could continue working together on drones and the combat cloud system.
“The core of FCAS is to be continued as a European system of systems. This is, in a sense, the nervous system that networks aircraft, drones, and other components into an integrated whole,” the official said.
The French and German defense ministries will be tasked with developing a work plan for defense industrial cooperation “focused on a few realistic, relevant projects,” the official added.
Reuters first reported the decision.
A slow death
FCAS isn’t the only multinational defense program with problems.
French and German joint plans to build maritime patrol aircraft, a next-generation tank and artillery systems faltered in recent years, while the Global Combat Air Programme jet fighter project led by Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom has also seen friction. France effectively pivoted away from the multibillion-euro, four-nation Eurodrone program, leaving its future uncertain as the remaining partners — Germany, Italy, and Spain — consider how to proceed.
The end of the fighter aircraft component of FCAS was not a sudden rupture but the result of a slow, grinding fight between Airbus and Dassault Aviation — two of Europe’s most influential defense contractors.
As previously reported by POLITICO, German and French officials have been saying behind closed doors for months that the jet-fighter component of the project was effectively “dead.”
The stalemate deepened last summer when Dassault, the maker of France’s Rafale fighter, pushed to take the lead in building the FCAS fighter. Airbus would be treated as a subcontractor with limited visibility into the design, while Dassault would be able to select suppliers, decide on sharing out the project work and act as the sole interface with customers.
Airbus rejected the approach as a fundamental break with the joint agreement that launched FCAS, arguing it would turn a European cooperative program into a French-led fighter supported by German and Spanish funding and industrial competencies.
By September, POLITICO reported that Berlin was starting to look for other options, including teaming up with Sweden or joining the rival GCAP program.
Adding to the industrial dispute, Paris and Berlin also differed over the fighter’s weight, with France wanting a lighter jet for aircraft carriers, while Germany pushed for a heavier one for air-superiority roles. Eventually, Berlin proposed building two aircraft — an option Paris rejected.
In March, Merz and Macron agreed to give the project one last chance, but those talks failed to overcome deep differences.
On Monday, the German chancellery informed Airbus of the decision to pull the plug. According to La Tribune, Merz will make the decision official on Wednesday at the opening of the ILA air show in Berlin.
The Elysée and French defense ministry didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Laura Kayali reported from Paris. Clea Caulcutt contributed to this report from Paris.
This article has been updated.