France and Germany have agreed to abandon plans to jointly develop a next-generation fighter aircraft, effectively ending the central element of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program, according to Reuters.
The decision was reportedly reached during discussions between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of a summit in Montenegro last week.
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Reuters cited German officials as saying the two leaders concluded there was no realistic path to resolving longstanding disagreements between the industrial partners involved in the project.
Launched in 2017 by France and Germany, and later joined by Spain, FCAS was intended to become Europe's flagship sixth-generation combat aircraft program. The project envisioned a crewed fighter operating alongside unmanned systems connected through a secure digital network known as a combat cloud.
However, development has been repeatedly delayed by disputes between Dassault Aviation and Airbus over leadership, intellectual property rights and responsibility for key elements of the aircraft's design.
The collapse of the fighter component represents a major setback for European defense cooperation at a time when governments across the continent are increasing military spending amid growing security concerns.
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According to Reuters, discussions are continuing over whether some elements of the FCAS architecture, including networking and unmanned systems, could survive under the existing program structure even without the fighter aircraft itself.
The reported decision also raises questions about the future direction of European combat aviation.
France and Germany have historically followed different approaches to fighter development. France withdrew from the multinational program that eventually produced the Eurofighter Typhoon in the 1980s and instead developed the Dassault Rafale independently.
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The end of the joint fighter effort leaves Europe without a unified sixth-generation combat aircraft program. The United Kingdom, Italy and Japan are separately developing the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), which aims to field a next-generation fighter in the 2030s.
Neither the French nor German governments had formally announced the cancellation of the fighter project as of Monday.
