The future of the Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS) remains uncertain - a year to the day after the Bundestag gave the go-ahead to finance what is estimated to be the most expensive European armaments project at 100 billion euros.
It combines a fighter jet, a swarm of drones and a combat cloud, was decided after years of wrangling by Germany, France and Spain and is intended to replace the fighter jets Eurofighter and Rafale in 2040.
Ulrich Friese
Editor in Business.
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Niklas Zaboji
Economic correspondent in Paris
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But the negotiations between the companies involved are deadlocked.
The Bavarian-based armaments division of Airbus, Dassault Aviation from France and Indra Sistemas from Spain agree on six out of seven work packages.
But the heart of the FCAS project, the fighter jet, is not progressing.
The schedule is shaky: the agreement “before early summer”, which Airbus armaments chief Michael Schöllhorn indicated in the FAZ in February, did not come about – despite Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the “turning point” proclaimed in Berlin.
Many interests in conflict
The crux of the negotiations remains the development of the fighter jet.
Airbus and Dassault have agreed that the French will take care of the construction of the fuselage and cockpit, while the German side will build the drones and set up the data cloud.
But there is great distrust on both sides.
It is about patents, jobs and control over exports.
"We remain confident that we can reach an agreement on FCAS as soon as possible, both at an industrial and political level," affirmed Bruno Fichefeux, FCAS program manager at Airbus, on Wednesday in an interview with the FAZ. But he does not deny that the tug of war persists.
When it comes to the fighter jet, “they still have a different perspective than Dassault on what cooperation means,” says Fichefeux.
"Main partner" instead of Dassault's supplier - this is how Airbus defines its understanding of the construction of the FCAS fighter jet.
This means in particular the flight control and stealth function.
The French are conceded the leadership role in the fighter jet, but are expected to keep in touch with the Germans on these technologically sensitive points.
After all, flight control at the Manching site is one of Airbus' "specialties".
The French take a different view.
"What I put as a red line is that there is a leader," Dassault boss Éric Trappier said in March.
He announced a partial withdrawal of his engineers from the project - and has since sharpened his tone.
Trappier did not even publicly rule out failure.
In any case, there will be a significant delay: the goal of developing FCAS by 2040 is no longer realistic, he said two weeks ago at an event in Paris.
You have to adjust to the 2050s.
Business comes first
Trappier did not say how he arrived at this delay.
The Dassault boss declined a conversation with the FAZ.
A company spokesman justified this with the "sensitive political phase" in which France is in view of the parliamentary elections.
In France, Trappier has a reputation for being a tough businessman.
The recent export successes of the Rafale built by Dassault have reportedly made the manager's chest even broader.
His statements are fueled by the political right in France, where the FCAS has always been viewed critically.
The most recent decision from Berlin to replace part of the Tornado fleet with American F-35 fighter jets strengthened the skepticism that the Germans were closer to the United States than the French.
In view of the new majority in Parliament, no fresh tailwind from Paris is to be expected for FCAS.
Potential FCAS suppliers had originally hoped that President Emmanuel Macron, with a majority in parliament, would persuade Dassault to give in and take the project to the home straight.
It turned out differently.
So the ball is still in the hands of the companies.
A failure of the mammoth project is ruled out at Airbus.
"FCAS is just too important," says program manager Fichefeux.
In addition, one party cannot finance the expensive prestige project.
"There is no alternative to European cooperation between the two leading nations, Germany and France. They must all pull together in the interests of a united Europe," says Fichefeux.
A topic with potential for conflict
The danger of failure is great, as history shows: Dassault has so far proven to be highly idiosyncratic when it comes to European cooperation.
For example, when the Bundeswehr wanted to equip the Luftwaffe with a modern interceptor in 1957, the US manufacturer Lockheed-Martin with its Starfighter and Dassault with its Mirage 3 were shortlisted by the military.
However, the French manufacturer absolutely did not want to fulfill the requirement of the German Minister of Defense to relocate parts of the production and assembly to German aircraft sites if the contract was awarded.
The US rival had no problem with this and was given a chance in the Luftwaffe.
The cooperation between Dassault and the Eurofighter consortium, founded in 1983, developed in a similarly difficult manner.
In the attempt to unify the equipment of the air forces in Europe, the French were initially involved along with Germany, Great Britain and Italy.
But Dassault insisted on a special status: It wanted to take over the system leadership in the construction of the Eurofighter and 50 percent of the work share.
Since the other partners did not want to fulfill the special requests, Dassault left the association in 1984 and built the Mirage successor, the Rafale.
Spain closed the gap in the Eurofighter consortium in 1985.