Franco-German parliament group calls for cooperation on air defence

The joint body representing the parliaments of France and Germany has called for a European fighter jet project to be pushed forward despite disagreements over how the project should be run, ahead of a joint meeting set for Monday.

"We Europeans have to design, develop and also procure more weapons systems jointly in future," a draft motion before the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly says, according to a text seen by dpa ahead of the meeting.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government has said that a decision on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), which has been the subject of wrangling over to what extent the respective countries should take part, will be taken by the end of the year.

Germany is calling for French arms maker Dassault to "stick to existing agreements," under which Dassault, Airbus Deutschland and Spain's Indra will each take a third share. Dassault is reporting to be seeking an 80% stake - something rejected by the Germans.

The FCAS is to replace the current Eurofighter Typhoon - introduced at start of the millennium by the British, French, German, Italian and Spanish air forces - by 2040. The FCAS will be designed to operate in combination with drones.

Spain has also been involved in the project since 2019. Total costs are estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Recent reports suggest Germany and France could drop the project and focus instead on a military "cloud" to combine data and command systems for various weapons systems – jets, autonomous systems and sensors.