The next-generation aerial combat system FCAS should be terminated, said one German MP with the country’s air force in his portfolio, one week before France, Germany, and Spain meet to decide the project’s future.

The €100 billion Future Combat Air System (FCAS) is on the brink of failure due to a dispute between Paris’ Dassault Aviation and Berlin’s Airbus Defence.

Trust has been so damaged that “terminating FCAS is likely the only functional solution to the existing problem,” said centre-right MP Volker Mayer-Lay, who is the German parliament’s rapporteur for the air force.

French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz each promised to decide the project’s future by the end of this year.

Mayer-Lay’s statement reads that a controlled end of FCAS would allow for a genuine fresh start. “The Franco-German friendship will survive this – but German industry will not survive a further delay,” he said.

“The first thing to do now is to get moving again after the standstill,” the CDU politician told Euractiv.

His social-democrat colleague Christoph Schmid agreed that “Germany cannot afford to lose valuable years while other countries rapidly develop their capabilities”.

France’s prime contractor, Dassault Aviation, demanded a dominant role in developing the sixth-generation fighter jet, even saying it would rather go it alone than work with Airbus Defence.

The initial agreement between Berlin, Paris, and Madrid had Dassault leading on FCAS’ fighter jet project, while Airbus would head its drone and AI cloud aspects – the so-called “system of systems.”

However, the Germans oppose Dassault dictating all aspects of the jet’s development, notably the selection of suppliers.

“Anyone who behaves in this way demands subordination. Anyone who pushes others aside is not looking for partnership,” Mayer-Lay said, stating that power games and national vanity are paralysing the project.

When asked if there is room for France and Germany to each establish a sixth-gen fighter jet, Mayer-Lay said three projects would be “at least one too much”. The UK, Japan, and Italy, are also pressing on with their own ‘GCAP’ project.

“However, further cooperation or knowledge transfer can take place in the future,” he said.

Defence ministers from Germany, France, and Spain are set to decide FCAS’ future on 11 December, Bloomberg reports.

(cp)