France and Germany may have signed off on the latest milestones to develop a future combat aircraft, but tensions are simmering due to Berlin’s continued reluctance over defense exports.
The two countries agreed to a pact to further defense cooperation on Jan. 22, including finding a “common approach” to exports of defense equipment produced in partnership. But Germany now appears to be holding up sales of the MBDA Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile to Saudi Arabia, citing concerns about Riyadh’s ongoing conflict in Yemen, French newspaper
La Tribune reported on Feb. 5.
MTU and Safran will work together on the engine for the NGF
Demonstrator programs for FCAS will be announced at the Paris Air Show
And while exports of a Future Combat Air System (FCAS) are at least two decades away, there are concerns that a failure to find consensus on defense exports, even after such high-level agreements, could yet throw a spanner into the work of the Franco-German industry at a fragile early stage.
“It is a path . . . . We will find a solution,”
French Air Force chief Gen. Philippe Lavigne said in Washington on Feb. 7 when asked about Germany’s reticence toward defense exports, particularly to some Middle Eastern countries. “There is a real determination for this program, for our security but also for our industry. We have to develop this.”
On Feb. 6, Berlin and Paris began doing just that, issuing the first industry contracts for a two-year concept study for the FCAS, which is being developed to replace France’s
Dassault Rafales and Germany’s Eurofighters.
The €65 million ($74 million) project will outline the concepts and provide some options for different architectures, says Lavigne. It will also prepare and initiate demonstrator programs that could be formally launched at this year’s Paris Air Show and fly about 2025. The work follows national studies carried out during 2018 that outlined the characteristics and missions the FCAS would perform.