The Guardian Business · Экономика · 3 ч назад
Europe’s fighter jet plans are in disarray. What happens next?
While the UK and Italy are making progress, France and Germany’s joint venture came to nothing, and the prospect of more countries pulling together seems way off When the former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi laid out a plan for Europe to catch up economically with the US and China, collaborating on defence was one of the prescriptions. No more should each country in Europe tr…
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France and Germany abandoned the future combat air system project in June. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters View image in fullscreen France and Germany abandoned the future combat air system project in June. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters Aerospace industry Europe’s fighter jet plans are in disarray. What happens next? While the UK and Italy are making progress, France and Germany’s joint venture came to nothing, and the prospect of more countries pulling together seems way off
Jasper Jolly Tue 8 Sep 2026 05.00 BST Last modified on Tue 8 Sep 2026 05.04 BST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google W hen the former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi laid out a plan for Europe to catch up economically with the US and China, collaborating on defence was one of the prescriptions. No more should each country in Europe try to make its own version of a boat, tank or jet but instead share costs and technologies between allies.
Europe appears to have fallen at the first hurdle. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, were forced to cancel the joint future combat air system in June, after fraught efforts to work together since 2018.
The question exercising defence executives over the summer since then, including when the global aviation industry gathered at July’s Farnborough airshow, is: what happens now? France appears to be content to push ahead with its own fighter jet but Germany has been left questioning whether it will have its own aircraft. It may instead be left as a secondary customer to the rival Tempest jet under the global combat air programme (GCAP) led by the UK, Italy and Japan.
Meanwhile, in the UK the debate over the summer has been over the future of military spending, after the resignation of John Healey as defence secretary in June over spending commitments, his return under Andy Burnham as chancellor and continued questions over when the UK will meet its target of spending 3% of GDP on defence.