“Federal Chancellor Merz has therefore advised President Macron not to pursue the development of a joint fighter jet any further,” the official added.
The project, known as the Future Combat Air System and launched in 2017, has stalled due to bitter disagreements between France’s Dassault and Germany’s Airbus Defence and Space over which company should take the lead on the project.
FCAS, which also involves Spain, is meant to replace Germany’s Eurofighter and France’s Rafale jets by around 2040. The program includes a warplane — the main point of contention — as well as drones and a combat cloud — the digital backbone of the project that will link sensors, satellites, drones and jet fighters into a single system.
Despite the failure of the jet fighter part of FCAS, the German government official didn’t rule out that Paris and Berlin could continue working together on drones and the combat cloud system.
“The core of FCAS is to be continued as a European system of systems. This is, in a sense, the nervous system that networks aircraft, drones, and other components into an integrated whole,” the official said.
The French and German defense ministries will be tasked with developing a work plan for defense industrial cooperation “focused on a few realistic, relevant projects,” the official added.