François Picard is pleased to welcome Ulrike Franke, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. According to Franke, the demise of the Franco-German FCAS fighter jet project was "not a surprise to anybody". While acknowledging that Dassault was often perceived as "quite difficult to deal with," she argues that the deeper problem lay in a structural design flaw that brought together industrial rivals who "never really had the incentive to properly work together".
The collapse of the fighter jet pillar of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) marks one of the most significant setbacks in recent European defence cooperation. Conceived as a flagship project intended to deepen Franco-German strategic integration and strengthen European technological sovereignty, FCAS was meant to deliver a next-generation combat aircraft capable of operating in an increasingly contested security environment.
