Airbus Defence and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn says the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) — the long-planned Franco‑German fighter and air defense project — will continue but will require restructuring. In an exclusive interview with DW, Schoellhorn, whose company is a central partner in FCAS, acknowledged deep tensions with French partner Dassault Aviation over the manned fighter element.
“Yes, there’s a problem with the manned-fighter between two companies,” he said. “Mine is one of them. It’s a danger that if you start on these big European projects, it takes more than political will. It takes the industrial alignment of the players involved.”
Recent reporting suggested the €100 billion ($118 billion) program was near collapse, with Dassault keen to retain control of the fighter jet component. Schoellhorn said the project, launched by French President Emmanuel Macron and then‑German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2017 and later joined by Spain, was conceived under different geopolitical circumstances and now needs to adapt to faster development cycles and expanded defense demand.
“We have a totally different world now, and now speed is of the essence,” he said. “The times when you could define something very precisely with long requirement lists that would then come 15 or 20 years later are over; the speed of change is so rapid that we also need to change the way we develop things. So there’s a restructuring of FCAS needed anyway.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned the planned sixth‑generation jet may be unsuitable for Germany’s needs, saying the aircraft under discussion aligns more with French requirements — including nuclear capability — than with what the Bundeswehr currently seeks. “France only wants to build one thing and wants to practically align it with the specification that France needs. But that’s not the one we need,” Merz said, adding that unresolved requirement differences could end the project.
French officials have at times sounded pessimistic, with some reports suggesting FCAS could be declared dead. Yet Benjamin Haddad, France’s Minister Delegate for European Affairs, told DW at the Munich Security Conference that France remains committed and that integrating governments, industries and companies unused to working together is difficult but necessary for an ambitious program.
Schoellhorn argues FCAS need not hinge solely on a single manned fighter. The program was intended to combine a fighter with unmanned systems, a “combat cloud” command-and-control network, sensors and simulation tools. Much of that non‑flying infrastructure, he said, is progressing well. If the project were restructured to accommodate two different fighters within a broader system, it could preserve Franco‑German‑Spanish collaboration and make the program more resilient.
He pointed to previous pan‑European successes such as the Eurofighter Typhoon collaboration involving Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo as a model of multinational cooperation. Germany has privately discussed scaling back the joint fighter element to prioritize the combat cloud and command-and-control capabilities instead.
The debate unfolds amid a major ramp‑up in European defense spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has increased pressure on Europe’s defense industrial base and accelerated timelines for procurement.
Edited by: Ashutosh Pandey