Germany is accusing French manufacturer Dassault of blocking negotiations over the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project.
Germany is also trying to claim the entire ownership of the project and ignoring the french requirements, like navalisation.
They even tried to buy out Dassault, of all things…
Cooperation means finding compromises. On both ends.
That’s a very good requirement to question though. This will add considerable costs to the entire project just for a few dozen planes that will end up on the single French aircraft carrier.
The rafale has a navalisable variant and is quite affordable and capable, compared to many offerings, including american ones.
Even if you ignore both the operating and the in-construction French airplane carriers, it’s an interesting export selling point. Lots of people in the pacific and the Indian oceans have airplane carriers or might end up wanting one.
What’s even the point of a common next-gen fighter jet if you compromise on such a core feature on development costs grounds alone ?
Additionally, Spain operates a fixed-wing aircraft carrier with some very outdated planes on it that presumably need replaced, and they’re a full partner in the program. Australia has two ships of the same design too, so if it can fly from the Spanish one then that’s an obvious export market
Absolutely. I think this is another french geopolitical wisdom moment germany had too much ego to acknowledge.
The only wisdom here is French self interest.
Europe doesn’t need a carrier capable plane to defend itself. Aircraft carriers are not defensive weapons. France wants an aircraft carrier for it’s own power-projection capabilities. So I think it’s fair to question that kind of a requirement on a joint project.
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands all have overseas territories that would be reasonable defensive concerns to get aircraft to under a more unified European military policy. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be able to do it
Or you could just build an airstrip on those territories and station some land-based planes there.
I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider it. We also considered with the Eurofighter but then decided against it (which is one of the reasons France left the project and build the Rafale instead). It’s just not a capability that most nations need so it makes sense that they don’t want to invest in it.
Its stupid, how petty they can be and are. At a time when we have to show unity, they are fighting over ownership of the project.
The Ego War between French Dassault management and German Airbus management gets ridiculous. The project needs to move forward and the non cooperative manager need to get fired
The ego war goes beyond national companies. The French and Germans still has underlying rivalry between each other. Remember when France and Germany had a spat that their own compatriot must become the next EU commissioner? The compromise had been the current EU commissioner, Von der Leyen, even though she is an incompetent politician according to the Germans.
Where does this claim of incompetence come from? I remember her as Family Minister, Labour Minister and Defense Minister under Merkel, and she was definetely one of the most competent and progressive ministers in these cabinets, which lead to her being not backed by the conservative wing of the CDU and sent off to Brussels. Not because of incompetency, but because of being too competent and too progressive. After she became President of the European commission I cannot recall reports or claims of incompetency either until a couple of years ago everybody just began to agree that she’s incompetent without providing any example. So where’s her current incompetence? What did I miss?
Where does this claim of incompetence come from?
Defense Minister under Merkel
Von der Leyen is blamed for neglecting the state of the German army. Many units have sorely outdated equipment and living conditions of barracks not being looked after. Many barracks are too cold to sleep in iirc. To be honest, I haven’t delved into it much but this is what Germans in Reddit and others mentioned.
So where’s her current incompetence? What did I miss?
There is the Pfizergate, which Von der Leyen made deals with Pfizer for the covid vaccines through text messages, which is very informal and unprofessional.
Von der Leyen previously used her phone to award contracts worth several hundred million euros while acting as defense minister of Germany, effectively bypassing public procurement processes. She subsequently deleted all messages from her phone when investigators probed her. While awarding the COVID-19 vaccine contracts worth billions of euros as head of EU commission, she similarly bypassed procurement processes via her phone and withheld messages on it.
Thank you for the Pfizergate link. Her handling of COVID was pretty bad, that’s true.
Regarding the sorry state of the German army – the Bundeswehr was neglected by every single government since the reunification, and von der Leyen was one of the few, if not the only defense minister in 30 years who addressed the issue and tried to improve the state of the army. It’s more complicated than competent/incompetent.