The three FCAS nations are set to meet on Friday in Berlin, preceded the day before by a bilateral meeting of the French and German defence ministers, Berlin’s defence ministry confirmed amid mounting pressure to decide the fighter jet project’s future.
Progress on the joint Future Air Combat System (FCAS) project has stalled due to a dispute between France and Germany’s aviation giants. The leading contractors, Germany’s Airbus Defence and France’s Dassault, have publicly aired their disagreements about the envisioned work.
Germany and France vowed to find a solution for the €100 billion project by the end of the year, but the partners have not yet had a high-level meeting to discuss the issue, and time is running out.
Germany’s defence ministry confirmed to Euractiv that French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin will visit her German counterpart Boris Pistorius this Thursday, her first visit to Berlin as defence minister. However, Germany’s defence ministry declined to comment on the details of the agenda.
The next day, Pistorius and Vautrin will be joined by Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles, the third country participating in FCAS.
Madrid has largely managed to keep out of the dispute between France and Germany.
Dassault Aviation, France’s prime contractor, made clear its preference to develop the fighter on its own if it is not granted a greater leadership role. Its German counterpart, Airbus Defence and Space, opposes this and insists on playing an equal role in decisions over the aircraft’s design.
Originally, defence ministers from the three partner countries of FCAS, Germany, France, and Spain, were due to meet in Berlin in October to chart a way forward. This meeting was postponed due to repeat reshuffles of the French government.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz each promised to decide the project’s future by the end of this year.
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(cp)