France and Germany abandon joint project to build European fighter jet

Paris and Berlin conclude firms involved unable to agree on way forward in blow to Europe’s common defence push

France and Germany have concluded that the companies involved in building a joint fighter jet will not be able to reach an agreement and have abandoned the project, officials in Berlin have said in a blow to Europe’s common defence efforts.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had “reached the shared assessment that the companies will not be able to come together”, an official told Agence France-Presse. “They acknowledge this reality.”

Macron and Merz’s predecessor, Angela Merkel, launched the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) in 2017 to replace France’s Rafale jets and the Eurofighter used by Germany and Spain by about 2040.

But the €100bn project has been dogged by disagreements between the companies involved – France’s Dassault Aviation and the European aerospace group Airbus, representing German and Spanish interests – over leadership and control of the development programme.

Dassault reportedly insisted on being the lead partner in the jet’s development in order to protect its intellectual property, while Airbus pushed for a more equal partnership involving significant technology transfers.

Paris and Berlin were also understood to be at loggerheads over the type of jet, with France seeking a single European model but Germany saying its needs were not the same because French planes needed to carry nuclear weapons and land on aircraft carriers.

Merz has previously openly questioned whether developing a crewed sixth-generation fighter jet still makes sense for his country’s air force, and has said EU member states do not all have the same military hardware requirements.