Covid-19 also weakens plan for common European defense

Evil winds are blowing on European defense which could be sacrificed on the altar of budgetary restrictions. If we judge by the bad news that is linked, this is probably what we can fear.

First of all, let's go back to December 2019. In Brussels, the discussions on the 2021-2027 budget are struggling to succeed: the Member States do not agree on the amount or its distribution. And fail to decide: favor the common agricultural policy, the structural funds, the ecological transition or the digital transformation?

The Finns who then chaired the Council of the European Union proposed to cut the budget of the European defense fund in half. Berlin does not react. "Defense has never been the priority of the Germans, notes Gaëlle Schweiger, researcher associated with the Foundation for Strategic Research. This industry does not make the weight compared to the automobile or the machine tools."

Recall that on June 13, 2018, the European Commission displayed its ambitions and promised 13 billion euros for defense between 2021 to 2027. Unheard of in the history of European institutions, especially since Brussels has very few powers in this domain.

Faced with the pandemic, new priorities for Brussels?

The second alert concerns the new Commission priorities imposed by the Covid-19 health crisis. "It is to be feared, sighs an expert in Brussels, that the Commission will abandon defense to focus on health and energy and digital transitions."

Hélène Masson, senior researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research is less pessimistic. By creating in October 2019, a Directorate-General for Defense and Space, a first, the researcher believes that the European Commission will commit to advancing this file despite a smaller budget.

In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, Berlin buys F-18s

Third worrying signal: in the middle of a Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, on April 21, 2020, Berlin announced its intention to buy 45 copies of the American F-18 Growler fighter plane, manufactured by Boeing. It is the first time in decades that Berlin has purchased an American military aircraft. However, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the German Minister of Defense, is also careful to announce the purchase of 93 Eurofighter planes, built by Airbus.

What to worry the French with whom the Germans committed in July 2017 to build an Air Combat System of the Future (Scaf), joined since by the Spanish. A device that includes, among other things, the manufacture of a combat drone and that of a new generation fighter aircraft.

The CEO of Dassault Aviation, one of the partners of the Scaf project with Airbus Defense and Space, remains calm while declaring to the press on April 24, 2020 that the German decision is rather good news for France. Why such confidence? Berlin avoided the worst and did not buy the latest aeronautical industry, the F-35, from Lockheed Martin.

"Berlin had little choice, assures Gaëlle Schweiger, it had to replace its old Tornado." Planes designed by the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy in the 1970s and brought into service in the early 1980s. The German Air Force also needed an aircraft capable of carrying the B -61, an American nuclear bomb, deployed within the framework of NATO.

This is currently the mission of its Tornado PA-200s integrated into the 33rd fighter bomber squadron. The Lutfwaffe dreamed of the F-35, a politically impossible gift for the German chancellor. The F-18 Growler is therefore a compromise.

The Americans put pressure on Berlin by refusing to certify a European device. Neither the Eurofighter nor the Dassault Rafale are authorized to carry this American bomb. Berlin can therefore justify its choice of the Boeing F-18. Problem: he too is not specified for this nuclear weapon!

Washington therefore undertook to quickly modify its aircraft to adapt it to the B-61 and its new version, the B-61-12. Washington and Berlin therefore remain nuclear connected. "The principle of nuclear sharing is the strongest representation of the Atlantic alliance between Berlin and Washington, insists Gaëlle Schweiger. The current German leaders insist on it at all costs."

The stake of this old bomb in service since the 1960s is therefore not security, but political. Didn't the Americans announce in their new nuclear posture that it was outdated and that it was necessary to count on missiles with short range? "The objective of the Americans, adds Hélène Masson, is never to create a favorable environment for aircraft made in Europe. In a word: they want to kill the European military aeronautical industry."

F-18s against German car taxes

This announcement by the German government gives rise to fears within the defense circles in France. For some experts, the Germans play on several tables at the same time. In the midst of an economic crisis due to the Covid-19, they displayed their desire to revive the economy via the defense industry by ordering 93 Eurofighter from Airbus.

At the same time, they are doing economic diplomacy by committing to placing orders with American industry. "They benefit, explains a French source who prefers to remain anonymous, of a means of pressure against Washington. If America taxes German cars, Germany will not honor its order for F-18 from Boeing."  

While German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer wants to vote for these orders in the Bundestag before the end of the year, she meets resistance within the government coalition, the SPD being hardly in favor of this investment.

What will the Greens do if they strengthen their position in the next federal election in September 2021? In short, the vote in the Bundestag could be postponed until 2022 or even 2023. The time to marinate the Americans and keep a distance from President Trump who could regain his seat in the White House during the presidential elections of November 3, 2020.

A breach for the F-35?

Another French expert is worried about the long-term consequences of the German choice. Doesn't Berlin bring the wolf into the fold? The F-18 Growler is also an aircraft designed for electronic warfare. By acquiring it, the Lutfwaffe will have to integrate it into the Air Combat System of the Future (Scaf) imagined with the French and the Spanish.

This amounts to installing American technology at the heart of Scaf, which will thus be linked to the NATO system in which the American F-35 will reign supreme. "The worst thing, fears an expert, is that given the inevitable delay of the Scaf program planned for 2040, the Germans give it up and end up buying F-35s."

A highly flammable political choice which will ultimately sign the death of the military branch of Airbus. "Now if we only buy American equipment, warns the PS senator Hélène Conway-Mouret, Europe will 'get noisy': it will spend money wasted, without technology transfer and will lose all sovereignty."

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