Airbus says dispute with Dassault is threatening fighter jet project

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The chief executive of Airbus Defence and Space has warned that a dispute with its French partner over the next stage of an ambitious fighter jet project led by France and Germany needs to be resolved by the end of the year if the programme is to have any hope of succeeding. 

Michael Schoellhorn said the pan-European group and France’s Dassault Aviation had “different viewpoints” on the second phase in which they would build the first demonstration version of the jet, and suggested that politicians would have to get involved to resolve the impasse. 

Dassault CEO Éric Trappier has been increasingly critical of how tensions between the companies have hindered progress on the Future Combat Air Systems project, and has warned that much vaunted cross-border co-operation between French, German and Spanish partners might fall apart. 

Schoellhorn said Trappier’s recent comments appeared to suggest that the French group “wants to rearrange or change the whole landscape”, including the one country, one vote principle in the project’s governance. 

“That is possibly what Dassault has in mind when they say they’re not happy with the one-third they have on the fighter. It’s going to get very difficult,” said Schoellhorn in an interview at the Paris Air Show. 

The discussions were unlikely to get resolved between Airbus and Dassault alone, Schoellhorn added. “It will have to come to a political and industrial agreement that what we have agreed in the past is still valid,” he said. 

Trappier in April told the French parliament that the governance structure had to change. “This means that France, despite being the lead nation and contributing significantly to the programme, can be outvoted by Germany and Spain. Such a set-up leads to continuous negotiations and hampers efficient decision-making,” he said.

The Dassault boss has also argued that his company’s expertise in making fighter jets, which has been proved by years of strong sales of its Rafale jet, means it should be given a freer hand to pilot the FCAS.

The dispute over the FCAS project comes at a sensitive time for European governments as they seek to build up their domestic military capabilities to counter rising geopolitical threats. 

Launched by Berlin and Paris to great fanfare in 2017 and later joined by Madrid, FCAS is Europe’s biggest defence project. It was designed to enhance the continent’s strategic autonomy, strengthen political and military ties between its biggest economies and breathe new life into the European aerospace industry.

But the project has been dominated by tensions between Airbus, which represents Germany in the project, and rival Dassault. Spain’s Indra Sistemas is also a partner. 

There have been repeated arguments between Airbus and Dassault over technology sharing, who would lead critical parts of the programme, and the specifications of the fighter jet.

FCAS was conceived to include a next-generation jet that is designed to work seamlessly with drones and be fitted with advanced communications systems. If finalised, it could replace the fighter jets flown by European air forces, such as the Eurofighter, Germany’s Tornado and France’s Rafale.

The programme partners are under pressure to accelerate its development amid competition from a rival project, the Global Combat Air Programme, between Britain’s BAE Systems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The three companies have pledged to build an advanced fighter jet by 2035. 

Schoellhorn said that under the original agreement, Dassault had the “content lead” on the fighter jet, but if the company then said “in order to be the leader, we need to have much more than one-third of the work, then we’re going to start to run into issues”.

The partners, added Schoellhorn, needed to get these resolved “by year-end”. 

Airbus, said Schoellhorn, had enjoyed a very successful partnership with other companies, notably Britain’s BAE Systems and Italy’s Leonardo, on fighter jet projects such as Eurofighter and Tornado. The company had chosen to step away from these partnerships to partner with Dassault. 

“We have a 50-year heritage of very . . . successful collaboration, starting with Tornado, going into Eurofighter. Spain has joined as a country. It has joined the UK, Germany, and Italy. So we have basically given that up to pursue the political idea and the key to success lies in Paris.”