{"id":292556,"date":"2025-07-26T06:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T06:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/292556\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T06:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T06:06:12","slug":"belgium-snaps-back-at-arrogant-french-warplane-maker-in-jet-feud-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/292556\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium snaps back at \u2018arrogant\u2019 French warplane-maker in jet feud \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

FCAS is led by France’s Dassault, Airbus’ German unit and Spain’s Indra and is designed to deliver a next-generation fighter jet by 2040. However, it’s currently bogged down in disagreements around the work share, which Paris and Berlin are trying to solve. Dassault and Airbus have a notoriously fraught relationship, and the Rafale-maker wants to take the lead in making the FCAS’ warplane.<\/p>\n

Belgium is an observer member, but said last week it had earmarked<\/a>\u00a0\u20ac300 million for the program and will ask to become a full member \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

“If I was diplomatic, I would say that Belgium is welcome if they stop buying F-35s. If I wasn’t, I would say they’re really taking us for fools,” Trappier said this week. <\/p>\n

Trappier and Belgium have a long history of sparring over the Belgian government’s decision to purchase F-35s instead of Rafales. In 2023, the Dassault CEO pushed back against Belgium’s bid to become an observer, leading to a public spat<\/a> with Francken’s predecessor, Ludivine Dedonder.<\/p>\n

“The government will assess its position in the FCAS project,” Francken said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FCAS is led by France’s Dassault, Airbus’ German unit and Spain’s Indra and is designed to deliver a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[22318,1789,473,2000,299,7058,1214,108790,36,1824,54490,104,108791],"class_list":["post-292556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-airplanes","tag-belgium","tag-defense","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european-defense","tag-exports","tag-facs","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-multinational-defense-programs","tag-spain","tag-theo-francken"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114918036857426110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}