{"id":6020,"date":"2026-04-26T03:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T03:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/6020\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T03:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T03:49:16","slug":"macron-says-still-sees-france-germany-developing-european-fighter-jet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/6020\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron Says Still Sees France, Germany Developing European Fighter Jet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron denied Friday that a troubled fighter jet program with Germany<\/a> was dead, telling reporters Paris and Berlin were still working on that and other defense projects.<\/p>\n

The multi-billion-euro project has faltered as disagreements persist between the firms involved<\/a> \u2014 France\u2019s Dassault Aviation and Airbus<\/a>, which represents Germany and Spain.<\/p>\n

Speaking ahead of a EU summit in Cyprus, Macron said that after morning talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the pair had instructed their respective defense ministries to carry on work on a range of issues, including the fighter jet.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, not at all,\u201d Macron replied, asked by a journalist whether the European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) warplane program<\/a> was dead in the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good discussion this morning with the Chancellor and we have instructed our defense ministries to work on a number of areas, covering various topics \u2013- not just the fighter jet,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are continuing to move forward. Europe has never needed unity, greater independence and greater sovereignty more than it does now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The FCAS program was launched in 2017 to replace France\u2019s Rafale jets and the Eurofighter planes used by Germany and Spain.<\/p>\n

It is often seen as a bellwether of defense and security cooperation between France and Germany as the two EU powerhouses seek to put up a united front in the face of a hostile Russia and wavering US security commitment.<\/p>\n

Mediators tasked with salvaging the struggling initiative requested ten more days to deliver their conclusions, the French government said this week after reports suggesting the effort had failed to bear fruit.<\/p>\n

A German government spokeswoman confirmed Macron and Merz discussed the fighter jet program Friday morning and instructed defense ministers to continue work \u201con various aspects of cooperation and to agree on the next steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work will be completed in the coming weeks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French President Emmanuel Macron denied Friday that a troubled fighter jet program with Germany was dead, telling reporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[90,18,5482,701,4471,1105],"class_list":{"0":"post-6020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-airbus","8":"tag-airbus","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-fcas-program","11":"tag-france","12":"tag-future-combat-air-system","13":"tag-germany"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}