Germany and France Abandon the Joint FCAS Fighter After Eight Years
Berlin, 8 June 2026
Key points
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron took the decision on the margins of the EU–Western Balkans summit in Tivat on 5 June and made it public on 8 June: the joint sixth-generation fighter at the centre of the Future Combat Air System will not be built
- Launched in 2017 and joined by Spain in 2019, the programme was valued at around €100 billion and meant to replace the Eurofighter and the Rafale from about 2040
- The combat cloud continues with Airbus, Thales and Indra, and a narrowed industrial work plan goes to the Franco-German ministerial council in July; Dassault will develop France's nuclear- and carrier-capable jet alone
- Germany's national aviation strategy, adopted by cabinet on 10 June, stakes an Airbus-led claim on the successor, with Spain, Saab and the UK–Italy–Japan GCAP the partner options on the table
Germany and France abandoned the joint Future Combat Air System fighter on 8 June — Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron took the decision on the margins of the Tivat EU–Western Balkans summit three days earlier, ending an eight-year, roughly €100 billion attempt to build one European sixth-generation combat aircraft together.
German officials said the two leaders had reached the shared assessment that the companies would not come together on a joint combat aircraft. Berlin's account places the cause on industrial structure: Dassault chief executive Éric Trappier insisted on leading the fighter and would not treat Airbus as an equal partner on workshare and intellectual property, and Merz declined an arrangement in which Germany funded the jet while sub-contracting to Dassault. Beneath the workshare fight sat divergent requirements — France needs a nuclear-capable, carrier-capable aircraft; Germany needs neither.
What dies is the manned fighter. The combat cloud — the system-of-systems linking aircraft, drones, sensors and satellites — continues with Airbus, Thales and Indra, and Merz told ILA Berlin on 10 June it should become a central Franco-German project, with a work plan due at the July intergovernmental council. The EUMET engine venture of Safran, MTU Aero Engines and ITP Aero also kept building through the airframe paralysis; MTU argues one engine consortium should now feed both national jets.
Each capital leaves with a path. Dassault develops France's jet alone, on a funded Rafale F5 baseline. Germany's cabinet adopted a national aviation strategy on 10 June asserting that German industry must materially shape any future fighter, and eight firms led by Airbus put a successor consortium to the chancellery the next day — with Saab being sounded out and GCAP held as a fallback.
The proprietary read. This is a managed break, not a rout — and the sides are not equal. France was the prepared party: it got the split Dassault always wanted, with the leading independent European combat-air programme already under way. Airbus did not win the German lead on fighter pedigree; it won on Dassault's refusal of parity and on the two-fighter path it had itself proposed in the spring. Germany was the partner caught without a roadmap, and the aviation strategy is Berlin finally writing one through Airbus. Großwald judged the programme's premise formally failed in April; the cancellation, tracked in Signal No. 77, converts that judgement into policy.
Related · European sixth-generation fighter programmes
GCAP signs first tri-national contract: £686 million to Edgewing (1 April 2026)
Sources: Bundesregierung · Élysée · Airbus Defence and Space · Dassault Aviation.
First reported in Signal No. 77, 8 June 2026; the industrial response tracked in Signal No. 78.