Politicians hate to admit when their pet projects are exposed. So it’s no surprise that on February 9, French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed reports that a European effort to build sixth-generation fighter jets was close to collapse. The Future Combat Air System (FCAS), which he envisioned with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2017, had an expected price tag in the billions of dollars. This has only become more urgent amid Russian threats and fears of American abandonment. Europe’s growing defense budget will make this easier. But for months it has been compared to a dead man walking. Mr Macron plans to speak with German Chancellor Friedrich Marz, hoping to restore it.
French President Emmanuel Macron (Pool via YOAN VALAT/REUTERS/FILE PHOTO)The FCAS project was hailed as an opportunity for Europe to boost its air power after failing to build a rival to America’s fifth-generation F-35. It involves more than fighter jets, intended to replace France’s Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon flown by Germany and Spain (which joined in 2019). FCAS aims to create a swarm of autonomous drones to support the warfighter and a communications “combat cloud” to connect all its components.
It was always going to be difficult for the three major countries to work together in such a complex system. But what is killing FCAS is a form of dysfunctional cooperation between firms that has doomed several European defense projects in the past (see chart). It’s not just the fighter program that’s in trouble, said Sebastian Lyseca Segura, former director of Indra’s FCAS, the consortium’s Spanish partner. He said all three other joint projects in the last five years were essentially ride-offs.
Last October France pulled out of a €7bn ($8.3bn) drone program involving Airbus, Dassault and Italy’s Leonardo. The Franco-German conflict pushed back a planning schedule for a new tank year. Another Franco-German project to develop a maritime patrol aircraft fell apart in 2021 when Germany opted for an American aircraft instead.
FCAS is stuck in part due to disputes over work sharing. The idea was for Dassault, the maker of the Rafale, to take over the helm of the jet. Airbus (which was a Typhoon partner) was primarily responsible for the Battle Cloud and its remote carriers. Indra will focus on the sensors.
But the French and Germans disagreed on how to work together. “I will not accept three people sitting at a table to make decisions on all the technical aspects,” Dassault boss Eric Trappier said in September. Dassault thinks leaders should call the shots, while the Germans want to use the project to develop capabilities. But Dassault sees no obligation to surrender its intellectual property to Airbus. An insider said other large French firms involved in FCAS are behaving similarly.
The Germans are ready to walk. The only thing keeping FCAS in violation is that neither Mr Macron nor Mr Marge has worked out how to repeal it while saving face. Despite what Mr Macron says, Dassault will likely go its own way. “Combat Cloud” may be the only part to survive as a separate project.
With Germany set to nearly double its defense budget over the next three years, Airbus can do it alone, said Ben Schrier of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank. It wanted a heavier fighter than Dassault envisioned, one that could operate from an aircraft carrier. Airbus could also partner with Gripen fighter maker Saab of Sweden, whose interest in joining the rival British-Italian-Japanese project has cooled. For all the talk of bridging the industry divide, Europe could end up with four different sixth-generation fighters.
Two other important European joint projects are well under way. The European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA), launched in 2024, is developing ballistic and cruise missiles. It has seven partners: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Britain. The European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), which began in 2022, is a German-led procurement project for air defense systems that more than 20 countries have joined.
Neither is as ambitious as FCAS. ELSA is a loose alliance that will foster programs between two or three partners at a time. Thus France, Italy and Britain are developing a secret cruise missile, while Germany is developing a more powerful version of its Taurus missile with Sweden.
ESSI is different again. It will source off-the-shelf kits for identified purposes: European systems for short and medium-range roles; American Patriot and Israeli Aero Interceptors for long-range capabilities. France did not join, saying that Europe should not rely on the American system even though it would take longer to build its own. But Mr Schrier says pooling resources to buy existing systems is preferable to complex joint projects to develop new ones.
Camille Grand of ASD, the European space, security and defense industry trade body, said that in some countries defensively, a rapidly growing defense budget could reduce pressures and make cooperation less likely than fiscal tightening. “They can weigh the benefits of a national strategy against the complexities of cooperation,” he notes.
For years France has adopted Europe’s most nationalistic approach to military procurement. But soon Germany could spend twice as much as France on defense. Germany’s refusal to become FCAS’s junior partner reflects that new financial muscle “The question,” Mr. Grand said, “is how much cooperation is desirable, and in what framework?”
