Each morning of this week, Daniel Fortin, from the writing of
Les Échos
, takes stock of a current economic issue.
Today, he looks back on the ongoing negotiations on the project of a future European fighter plane.
It is an 80 billion euro case.
The project for a future European fighter plane has entered the home stretch.
An important meeting was held on Wednesday in Paris between the industrialists, and for the moment, it is difficult to agree ...
"Yes, Dassault, Airbus, Safran, the German group MTU and several senior officials from all the countries concerned were present at this meeting. It must be said that the subject is absolutely major since it involves building the future fighter plane. which will replace the Rafale and the Eurofighters in 2040. This is crucial if we want to one day build a real European defense. It is also vital because the cost of this type of program is such that it exhausts national budgets: we saw it with the tumultuous history of the Rafale. So we had better agree, everyone agrees on that. But when it comes to saying who will do what in this new plane, there that's a whole different story.
What exactly is blocking?
Several things.
First of all, the distribution of tasks between manufacturers in different countries: this in fact conditions future factories and therefore future jobs.
The Spaniards are claiming, for example, a third of the manufacture of the engines of the future aircraft, engines that the French Safran and the German MTU originally intended to share.
Another sticking point: intellectual property for a company like Dassault, for example, the very existence of which is conditioned by its patents.
It is not nothing to put them overnight in a common pot.
Finally, the last point of friction, leadership on techniques.
Who will be the leader in stealth?
On the flight controls on the cockpits?
Here too, these sovereignty issues must be settled before launching the project.
Can this project still fail?
We should know more this Thursday because a meeting is scheduled between Florence Parly, the Minister of Defense and her German counterpart to take stock of the negotiations.
If a failure is found, it would open a very serious political crisis.
We have never been so close to a common defense Europe.
Apart from the fighter plane, there are also other projects in the pipeline, such as a future European tank.
But all depend on what will be decided this week.
It's a sort of quits or double that is being played out on a subject that is truly structuring for Europe. "