Macron, Merz openly disagree on joint fighter jet program

NEW DELHI — French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have openly disagreed this week on the future of the embattled fighter jet program developed by France, Germany and Spain.

French and German officials have privately said for months that the Future Combat Air System was at a dead end because of disagreements between the project’s main contractors.

Now the rift between Paris and Berlin is increasingly coming out into the open, with Macron arguing Europe should have a standard fighter jet model and Merz saying the needs of European countries don’t necessarily align.

FCAS is intended to replace Germany’s Eurofighter and France’s Rafale jets by around 2040. The program includes a warplane — which lies at the heart of the disagreement — drones and a combat cloud.

The project has been repeatedly delayed by industrial disputes, especially between France’s Dassault Aviation and Germany-backed Airbus over leadership and control of the fighter jet.

“We Europeans … have an interest in standardizing, in having a common model” for warplanes, Macron told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of a trip to India. “We have identified common needs. Are they being called into question? The answer is no … Is building multiple aircraft the best use of our money? We need to standardize.”

That directly contradicts statements that Merz made earlier this week. The German chancellor said the German air force didn’t have the same requirements as that of France because French warplanes need to be able to carry nuclear weapons and land on aircraft carriers.

Merz’s comments were interpreted by the Belgian defense minister as a death sentence for FCAS (Belgium has an observer status in the program).

Berlin is open to making two different warplanes while still developing drones and a combat cloud together — and Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury told reporters on Thursday that his company is on board with this. 

France, however, doesn’t see that as an option to end the stalemate.

Macron, instead, doubled down on the need for Europeans to work together on defense, arguing the world was becoming ever more competitive with countries such as India eventually developing their own warplanes as well.

“We carried out this project eight years ago. Has there been less need for Europe in terms of defense since then? No,” he said. “We must redouble our determination.”

Laura Kayali reported from Paris. Tomasso Lecca contributed to this report from Brussels.