{"id":8805,"date":"2026-04-24T05:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/8805\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T05:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T05:54:10","slug":"france-germany-at-loggerheads-over-fighter-jet-decision-timeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/8805\/","title":{"rendered":"France, Germany at loggerheads over fighter jet decision timeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

The disagreement centres on the FCAS<\/a> (Future Combat Air System), a \u20ac100 billion programme developed with Spain to build a next-generation fighter aircraft, drones, and a shared digital combat network.<\/p>\n

The project was already under strain due to disputes between France\u2019s Dassault Aviation<\/a> and the Franco-German aerospace partnership involving Airbus SE<\/a>, which represents both Germany and Spain in the programme.<\/p>\n

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said he expects leaders to make a decision \u201cthis week,\u201d stressing that the final call rests with heads of state, including Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz and France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who are attending the EU Council summi<\/a>t in Cyprus on 23-24 April.<\/p>\n

However, French defence minister Catherine Vautrin indicated that there would be a delay, saying mediators had requested more time beyond an earlier deadline of 18 April, extending discussions by around 10 more days.<\/p>\n

German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that Germany and France had tasked the former head of tank manufacturer KMW (now KNDS<\/a>,) Frank Haun, and Laurent Collet-Billon, former head of France’s defence procurement agency DGA<\/a> at the end of March to find ways of salvaging the project.<\/p>\n

As Europe pours money into defence, reliance on US remains a sticking point<\/a><\/p>\n

Their talks with the industrial players are focused on three axes: intellectual property, work share, and export rights.<\/p>\n

But according to Handelsblatt, the two negotiators could not reach an agreement and even produced two different reports. Investment advisors Delfineo<\/a> added that the CEOs of Airbus Defence & Space and Dassault Aviation “haven’t spoken to each other for months”.<\/p>\n

While the programme officially aims to develop a fully integrated air combat system, insiders suggest a possible compromise could see cooperation continue on drones and digital systems, while the core fighter jet component may be scaled back or restructured.<\/p>\n

That potential shift would be politically sensitive for Paris, where the project is seen as a flagship of European defence integration.<\/p>\n

The wider industrial ecosystem also includes key players such as Safran SA <\/a>and US-based RTX Corporation<\/a>, which are linked to various technology components in the broader aerospace sector.<\/p>\n

(With newswires)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The disagreement centres on the FCAS (Future Combat Air System), a \u20ac100 billion programme developed with Spain to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7072,2240,2244,7071,5,732,65,230],"class_list":{"0":"post-8805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-boris-pistorius","9":"tag-dassault-aviation","10":"tag-fcas","11":"tag-fighter-aircraft","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-friedrich-merz","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-spain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}