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Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu: “This is a historic moment”

Photo: Tobias Schwarz / AFP

The future German-French armament project Mainground Combat System (MGCS) not only has a cryptic name, but many details of the development cooperation were also unclear until now. Now there is apparently agreement on many points between Berlin and Paris.

Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced after a meeting with France's department head Sebastien Lecornu that the modalities for developing the new land combat system had been agreed. "This is more than a milestone, this is a historic moment," said Pistorius.

"We're talking about something completely new"

Specifically, the project is about a new system in land combat that goes beyond simply replacing battle tanks, as the minister explained. So it's not just about modernizing the Leopard main battle tank, for example, "but we're talking about something completely new, something that will be groundbreaking as a land combat system in the future."

Both sides had agreed on the distribution of all tasks for the project, "without any scope for interpretations or misunderstandings, even from outside," said Pistorius. In addition, it was clearly stated that there would be a "50-50 division of industry" between the two nations in production, emphasized both Pistorius and Lecornu.

The minister spoke of complicated, profound and difficult negotiations, "also because they are literally about new territory that we are entering here." Pistorius announced that he would now travel to Paris on April 26th to sign the declaration of principles for the MGCS project. He expects that the project will then “run in 2040 plus X”. It is a “system of the future” that will also include artificial intelligence.

Germany and France agreed in 2017 to jointly develop both a modern fighter jet (FCAS) and a main battle tank (MGCS). However, different interests repeatedly emerged. It was also about the intellectual property of the developments and thus future export opportunities. France has always viewed Germany's stricter export policy with skepticism. Germany is leading the MGCS project, France is leading the FCAS project.

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