Germany is accusing French manufacturer Dassault of blocking negotiations over the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project.
The Ego War between French Dassault management and German Airbus management gets ridiculous. The project needs to move forward and the non cooperative manager need to get fired
Both you and the article claim that Airbus is German, which isn’t the case at all (France owns more than Germany of it and the current CEO is French). With Euronews I suspect malice in claiming so, but the more favorable interpretation is that the Airbus subsidiary called “Airbus Defense and Space” is headquartered in Germany and has a German CEO.
The ego war goes beyond national companies. The French and Germans still has underlying rivalry between each other. Remember when France and Germany had a spat that their own compatriot must become the next EU commissioner? The compromise had been the current EU commissioner, Von der Leyen, even though she is an incompetent politician according to the Germans.
Von der Leyen, even though she is an incompetent politician according to the Germans.
Unfortunately, I have the impression that something where French, German, and almost every other European nation agree is that the EU commission is a “golden retirerment” for incompetent but powerful politicians rather than the place where you send the best of the bests
Where does this claim of incompetence come from? I remember her as Family Minister, Labour Minister and Defense Minister under Merkel, and she was definetely one of the most competent and progressive ministers in these cabinets, which lead to her being not backed by the conservative wing of the CDU and sent off to Brussels. Not because of incompetency, but because of being too competent and too progressive. After she became President of the European commission I cannot recall reports or claims of incompetency either until a couple of years ago everybody just began to agree that she’s incompetent without providing any example. So where’s her current incompetence? What did I miss?
Where does this claim of incompetence come from?
Defense Minister under Merkel
Von der Leyen is blamed for neglecting the state of the German army. Many units have sorely outdated equipment and living conditions of barracks not being looked after. Many barracks are too cold to sleep in iirc. To be honest, I haven’t delved into it much but this is what Germans in Reddit and others mentioned.
So where’s her current incompetence? What did I miss?
There is the Pfizergate, which Von der Leyen made deals with Pfizer for the covid vaccines through text messages, which is very informal and unprofessional.
Von der Leyen previously used her phone to award contracts worth several hundred million euros while acting as defense minister of Germany, effectively bypassing public procurement processes. She subsequently deleted all messages from her phone when investigators probed her. While awarding the COVID-19 vaccine contracts worth billions of euros as head of EU commission, she similarly bypassed procurement processes via her phone and withheld messages on it.
Thank you for the Pfizergate link. Her handling of COVID was pretty bad, that’s true.
Regarding the sorry state of the German army – the Bundeswehr was neglected by every single government since the reunification, and von der Leyen was one of the few, if not the only defense minister in 30 years who addressed the issue and tried to improve the state of the army. It’s more complicated than competent/incompetent.
That is a perspective I’ve never heard. To the best of my knowledge, she was simply installed by Merkel because of personal favoritism.
Von der Leyen is the compromise between Macron and Merkel at the time.
Additionally, the general view is that politicians deemed incompetent in their countries are sent to the EU, where they could “do little damage”. The thing is with Von der Leyen, is that they gave her one of the most important positions in the EU despite the perceived poor track record of hers. I think you may be right that she was installed because favouritism also played part.
Germany is also trying to claim the entire ownership of the project and ignoring the french requirements, like navalisation.
They even tried to buy out Dassault, of all things…
Cooperation means finding compromises. On both ends.
That’s a very good requirement to question though. This will add considerable costs to the entire project just for a few dozen planes that will end up on the single French aircraft carrier.
The rafale has a navalisable variant and is quite affordable and capable, compared to many offerings, including american ones.
Even if you ignore both the operating and the in-construction French airplane carriers, it’s an interesting export selling point. Lots of people in the pacific and the Indian oceans have airplane carriers or might end up wanting one.
What’s even the point of a common next-gen fighter jet if you compromise on such a core feature on development costs grounds alone ?
Lots of people in the pacific and the Indian oceans have airplane carriers or might end up wanting one.
Are there though? First of all, we’re only talking small carriers here, so 30-40 planes max (the US are the only nation with super carriers). In the Indian Ocean there are … three. Two Indian ones and one Thai (but that one only operates helicopters). Another 2 Japanese (stretching Indian ocean a bit … also they already bought US planes).
So no, I don’t think it’s a a very interesting export selling point.
Edit: Forgot Australia, still doesn’t change the point.
australia has our head so far up the US’s ass that we’ll probably take some non functional mock ups of F-35s, pay full price, and thank them for also not delivering the submarines we agreed on and paid for and call it a day
australia has our head so far up the US’s ass
I guess I know what you mean, though I wouldn’t quite put it like that.
Australia is a giant island with a tiny navy, so you almost completely rely on the US for deterrence and protection of your sovereign water. That gives the US a lot of leverage on arms-deals. It’s also pretty much the reason Australia has joined every single US incursion into the middle east with boots on the ground.
It’s more like the US has you by the balls instead of your head being up their ass.
yeah that’s pretty fair. i often argue pretty similar with context
Additionally, Spain operates a fixed-wing aircraft carrier with some very outdated planes on it that presumably need replaced, and they’re a full partner in the program. Australia has two ships of the same design too, so if it can fly from the Spanish one then that’s an obvious export market
Absolutely. I think this is another french geopolitical wisdom moment germany had too much ego to acknowledge.
The only wisdom here is French self interest.
Europe doesn’t need a carrier capable plane to defend itself. Aircraft carriers are not defensive weapons. France wants an aircraft carrier for it’s own power-projection capabilities. So I think it’s fair to question that kind of a requirement on a joint project.
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands all have overseas territories that would be reasonable defensive concerns to get aircraft to under a more unified European military policy. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be able to do it
Or you could just build an airstrip on those territories and station some land-based planes there.
I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider it. We also considered with the Eurofighter but then decided against it (which is one of the reasons France left the project and build the Rafale instead). It’s just not a capability that most nations need so it makes sense that they don’t want to invest in it.
Aircraft carriers can be defensive weapons. Britain couldn’t have won the Falkland war without there carriers (although you could argue they reconquered them, but in defence of a part of their country), they can move many men and their jets to the place that has to be defended. Remember that there are European countries with land overseas.
Britain couldn’t have won the Falkland war without there carriers (although you could argue they reconquered them, but in defence of a part of their country)
I feel this is a bit backwards. Britain can get away with relatively few defense on their oversee territories because they have aircraft carrier power projection. They could still have won the Falkland wars without carriers if they put a proper military force on the island to begin with.
Also the current biggest threat and main reason we need this new jet is the Russian threat to mainland Europe. And I don’t see the 5 European aircraft carriers that currently exist playing a major role here (and 3 of them already have F-35s anyway).
So let’s get the plane we actually need first. I’m sure France’s oversee territories will be fine with just the Rafales protecting them for now.
What about Easter mediterranean which is one of the hotspot in Europe immediate neighbourhood ? What about Baltic sea which is the other hotspot in Europe immediate neighbourhood
Easily reachable from land-based airbases with some aerial refueling.
My only horse in this race is that fuck France and fuck Germany, but presumably in a war one would want to attack rather than only defend no?
Aircraft carriers are defensive weapons when you have a lot of overseas territories, like France, Denmark, UK.
Not really, more like a deterrence. Unless you park a carrier next to the territory permanently it’s not defending it. And in that case you might just build and airbase instead.
Its stupid, how petty they can be and are. At a time when we have to show unity, they are fighting over ownership of the project.
The problem in this case is really Dassault. There are framework agreements signed and they are not even close to giving 80% of the work share to France as Dassault wishes. Given where the project is right now, this probably means that Germany and Spain really reconsider joining Tempest. As both have worked previously on Eurofighter with the UK and Italy. That project certainly worked out well.
We saw Germany and France working together on Tiger and A400M. Those have been run by Airbus though, which is obviously capable of easily handing out production to all countries involved. That is also why Airbus is so interessted in Dassault. Buying them would allow them to design fighter jets, while they can easily move production to their factories all over Europe. The probably better alternative is Dassault buying or merging with other European defense companies to develop a rival to Airbus.
Seems like their ego got the better of them.
