Germany and France have abandoned their joint FCAS fighter jet project, a roughly 100 billion euro program they had been developing for six years with Spain and Indra also involved. The collapse is a major setback for Europe in the global race to build a sixth-generation combat aircraft.
The deal failed because the two countries wanted different aircraft. Airbus represented the German side and Dassault the French side, but they deadlocked over the jet’s design. France, which has 290 nuclear warheads and operates an aircraft carrier, wanted a carrier-capable plane that could carry nuclear weapons. Germany opposed those requirements because it has neither nuclear arms nor an aircraft carrier.
The split leaves both countries far behind rivals. Germany has not built fighter jets alone since World War II, and its new path will be through Airbus-led German Group Gen 6, which also includes MBDA, Diehl and Liebherr. Germany’s defense procurement through the end of 2026 is set at about 80 billion euros, much of it for European-made weapons, but current security needs make a 2040 delivery timeline look too distant.
France has more experience, but financing is its main problem. Its defense procurement budget is 50 billion dollars for 2024 to 2030, and according to the Financial Times it is negotiating with the United Arab Emirates on a joint sixth-generation version of the Rafale F5, including manned-unmanned strike operations controlled by a pilot. Meanwhile, China leads the field, having begun test flights of the Chengdu J-36 in December 2024. Analysts say it may reach 2.5 Mach and features a tailless design for stealth and aerodynamics, while the F-35 tops out at about 1.6 Mach.
The article says Israel has no plan to develop a fighter of any generation, given the huge costs, and notes that sixth-generation programs will rely heavily on advanced artificial intelligence, networking with drones, sensors and ground systems, and tighter stealth requirements. The United States awarded its NGAD sixth-generation program to Boeing in March 2025, calling the F-47 the most advanced aircraft ever, with a first flight target of 2028. Britain, Italy and Japan are also advancing their GCAP project, while Russia’s MiG-41 remains stuck before the design stage. Despite the FCAS failure, Berlin and Paris still plan to cooperate on the broader “combat cloud” system for real-time battlefield data sharing and AI analysis.
