BERLIN: Germany does not need the same fighter jets as France, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in an interview broadcast Wednesday, signaling that Berlin could abandon a flagship joint defense project.
“The French need, in the next generation of fighter jets, an aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons and operating from an aircraft carrier. That’s not what we currently need in the German military,” Merz said on the German podcast Machtwechsel.
The Future Combat Aircraft System (FCAS) program was launched in 2017 to replace France’s Rafale jet and the Eurofighter planes used by Germany and Spain by 2040.
But the scheme, jointly developed by the three countries, stalled last year as France’s Dassault Aviation got into heated disputes with Airbus, which represents German and Spanish interests in the project.
The project has also fallen foul of wider Franco-German disagreements, with Berlin accusing Paris of not making enough effort to boost defense spending.
