A meeting between the defense ministers of France, Germany and Spain failed to achieve a breakthrough to save the troubled FCAS project for a joint European combat aircraft, sources familiar with the talks said on Tuesday. According to them, the implementation of the project worth about 100 billion euros now looks "highly unlikely", reports "Reuters".
The FCAS program envisaged the development of a fifth-generation fighter by 2040, which would replace the French Rafale and the German and Spanish Eurofighters. Earlier, it was expected that the transition to the next stage would be announced at the EU summit in Brussels this week, but this has now been called into question. According to the sources, France is pushing for the decision to be postponed until next year, while Germany wanted to finalize it by the end of 2025.
The main dispute is over the distribution of roles in the project, in particular the desire of the French manufacturer Dassault to lead the program at the expense of the German partner Airbus - a position that Berlin considers unacceptable. There are also disagreements on key elements such as the so-called "combat cloud" and the unmanned systems that are part of the FCAS concept.
Additional tension is also created by the different military needs of the two countries. France is looking for an aircraft capable of carrying nuclear warheads and operating from an aircraft carrier, while Germany has already decided to purchase the American F-35 for NATO's nuclear deterrence tasks. Earlier, the head of Dassault questioned the future of the project, saying that it depends on Germany's willingness to rethink its dependence on imports of American weapons. The French and German defense ministries have not yet commented.