German, Spanish Firms Urge Gen-6 Jet Funding as FCAS Fighter Segment Is Dropped This Year
Updated
Updated · Defense News · Jun 11
German, Spanish Firms Urge Gen-6 Jet Funding as FCAS Fighter Segment Is Dropped This Year
3 articles · Updated · Defense News · Jun 11
Summary
Airbus, Indra and partner groups in Germany and Spain urged their governments to keep financing sixth-generation fighter work after Berlin and Paris scrapped the fighter-jet pillar of FCAS.
Existing FCAS contracts end in 2026, and the companies warned any funding gap would cause an “irreversible” loss of expertise built up under the now-defunct program.
The collapse followed years of disputes between Airbus and Dassault over leadership and intellectual property, despite political backing for FCAS from Germany and France.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has outlined 3 paths for Germany’s next-generation fighter plans: buy more U.S. F-35s, join the British-Italian-Japanese GCAP, or back an Airbus-led multinational project.
Spanish and German firms signaled they still want a multinational European combat-air effort, leaving room to plug into GCAP or widen participation to companies such as Saab.