Barely a year ago, the Future Air Combat System, or FCAS, which has brought together France and Germany for 4 years, later joined by Spain, and aimed at developing the replacement for Rafale French and Eurofighter Typhoon German and Spanish, faced several critical problems threatening even the continuation of the program. Whether it was about the distribution of the industrial load between the industries of each country or about problems concerning the intellectual property of certain technologies previously developed by Dassault Aviation, discussions were on hold, until a political impulse from the Elysée and the German Chancellery, which offered a minimum way out to allow the Bundestag to validate the financing of the design phase of demonstrators and prototypes, before the summer break and the German legislative elections in September.
However, and as we wrote then, this agreement did nothing to solve the underlying problems which were blocking the continuation of the program and of Franco-German cooperation, suggesting that these would reappear sooner or later. Since then, many events have complicated the already tense situation between Paris and Berlin, with a new coalition at the head of Germany without Angela Merkel's CDU, and disappointing German arbitrations from the French point of view, such as the return of the hypothesis of the acquisition of the F-35 by Berlin to replace the Tornado of the Luftwaffe dedicated to NATO nuclear sharing missions or the acquisition by Berlin of Boeing P-8A Poseidon Maritime patrol aircraft almost certainly condemning the MAWS program which was to produce a European aircraft for this mission. At the same time, Dassault Aviation saw its industrial and technical credibility skyrocket with an exceptional year in the field of exports for the Rafale which recorded 146 new orders in 2021, making the most exported device of its generation on the planet.
In fact, it is in no way surprising that the CEO of Dassault Aviation, Eric Trappier, is coming back to the media scene about current difficulties encountered in negotiations with Airbus Defense & Space regarding industrial sharing around this program. Indeed, the French aircraft manufacturer is more legitimate than ever to claim control over the production of the Next Generation Fighter, the medium fighter, the first pillar of the FCAS program, especially since the French industry has already made numerous concessions to German and Spanish industries in the other 6 pillars of the program, in contradiction with the “best athlete” paradigm on which the program was initially to be based. At the same time, the now probable arrival of the F-35 within the Luftwaffe mechanically reduces the urgency of the need for a replacement at Typhoon by 2040, putting Germany in a position of strength against France, which has no intermediate solution on which to rely.
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[…] yet major and dimensioning, the Air Combat System of the Future, or FCAS. The fact is, since the beginning of the year, the program bringing together Germany, France and Spain has been stopped, […]