EUMET's Fighter-Engine Funding Runs Out in September as Safran Gives Priority to French Requirements
Paris, 28 July 2026
Key points
- Presenting Safran's first-half 2026 results on 28 July, chief executive Olivier Andriès said funding for EUMET — the Munich-based engine venture with MTU Aero Engines, with ITP Aero as main partner — runs out in September
- Safran has the resources to develop only one next-generation combat aircraft engine and will give priority to French requirements, Andriès said, questioning whether French and German engine specifications will stay aligned
- People familiar with the matter told Reuters the venture is set to close and its engineers to be redeployed absent new funding, unless Paris and Berlin settle on two broadly similar aircraft that could take the same engine
- EUMET was created in April 2021 as sole prime contractor to the three governments for the New Generation Fighter engine; its Phase 1B funding lapsed in April 2026 with nothing ordered since
Safran's chief executive put a closure date on the last working piece of the collapsed Franco-German-Spanish fighter programme on 28 July: EUMET, the engine venture with Germany's MTU Aero Engines, is funded only until September, and Safran will spend what it has on the French requirement.
The company itself is not the constraint. Safran reported first-half recurring operating profit up 29 per cent to EUR 3.24 billion on revenue up 19 per cent to EUR 17.57 billion, an operating margin of 18.4 per cent, and raised full-year operating profit guidance to between EUR 6.4 billion and EUR 6.5 billion. Andriès described capacity ramping in defence, particularly in positioning and navigation, and said the group remains open to disciplined acquisitions there. What he would not commit to is two entirely different sixth-generation engines.
EUMET is the one surviving joint structure from the programme. Dassault is proceeding alone on the French side; Germany is looking for an airframe partner for Airbus. Both national paths have rested on an assumption that the shared elements could be salvaged from the wreck, and the Franco-German ministerial council of 17 July had already declined to give the engine a contracted future, its roadmap carrying only a commitment to a European standard for collaborative combat.
The engine sets the schedule for any sixth-generation aircraft, and Germany sits in only one engine team. A new fighter powerplant is a decade of work, which makes September a date on the airframe programmes as much as on the venture: whichever aircraft Berlin ends up in is dated by when a replacement engineering team is assembled. Europe's other sixth-generation powerplant consortium — Rolls-Royce with Avio Aero and IHI, for GCAP — said last week its demonstrator is nearing ground trials, which is further than EUMET has reached, and it does not include Germany. As Großwald Signal No. 111 recorded, the marker is narrow and near: whether France, Germany or the two together put money into EUMET before the end of September.
Related · The collapsed Franco-German fighter programme
Germany and France abandon the joint FCAS fighter after eight years (7 June 2026)
Eight German companies launch Team Gen 6 to bid for a national sixth-generation fighter (11 June 2026)
