“We share the assessment that the current situation is unsatisfactory. We are not advancing with this project,” he said. “We are both speaking with the French government, and we want a solution as soon as possible.”
French officials denied that Dassault Aviation wants 80 percent of the work on the NGWS.
However, the French company stresses it is looking for more decision-making power specifically on the NGWS to avoid having to consult Airbus and Indra on every step of the aircraft’s development. It argues that the current workflow is likely to cause delays.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Berlin and Paris were still aligning their positions, but stressed that Berlin’s demand was clear. | Tobias Schwartz/Getty Images
“Is the current organization, with a highly democratic workshare and governance, the most effective plan? … It’s a question we’ve asked the Germans and the Spanish, and no one can demonstrate that with the current organization and without clear leadership, we’ll have an aircraft on time,” said a French official working on FCAS, referring to the 2040 deadline.
One of the options could be to keep the current division of the work — around 33 percent for each country — while tweaking the governance to allow for faster decisions.
“Can we evolve this governance to ensure faster and clearer decisions? There is no obvious solution, but all stakeholders are quite flexible,” the French official added, stressing that Paris is fully committed to finding an agreement. “There is only one plan: to implement the FCAS. We must find a way to implement the FCAS.”