PARIS, 13 June. - (ANA) - A near decade-long Franco–German–Spanish project to jointly develop a New Generation Fighter appears to have fallen apart, with Berlin deciding to end its participation.

 

Hardly a traditional way to enter your national aerospace event, but Germany began this year’s Berlin Air Show having just decided finally to abandon its flagship combat aircraft development with France and Spain. A decade after it began exploring options for a next-generation fighter/ground-attack platform, Berlin appeared to be nearly back at the beginning.

 

Born out of a political impetus between Berlin and Paris in 2017, which Spain joined in 2019, the Franco-German Future Combat Air System (SCAF)/Next-Generation Weapon System (NGWS) has unravelled because of an inability to resolve competing industrial imperatives between Airbus and Dassault.

 

While Berlin and Paris are window-dressing the collapse by suggesting elements of SCAF/NGWS will continue, the New Generation Fighter (NGF) was at its core. Without that, what remains are information-technology projects to try to ensure interoperability and perhaps some uninhabited-aerial-vehicle-related programmes.

 

The NGF was aimed at developing a successor to the Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon, with an entry into service planned for some time in the 2040s. Dassault has a substantial order backlog for the Rafale, and will continue to develop the aircraft; Airbus’s German subsidiary also has a Eurofighter backlog, though not as large.

 

France will almost certainly continue supporting research and development of a next-generation combat aircraft, even if it does so nationally. It remains to be determined what Spain decides to do following Germany’s departure. Paris could also look to possible partners in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates is the largest Rafale customer in the region and has ambitions to further develop its defence aerospace industrial base. Saudi Arabia has also attracted French interest.

 

Berlin, meanwhile, has traditionally partnered with the United Kingdom for combat aircraft programmes. West Germany was a member of the tri-national Panavia Tornado consortium, and Germany was one of the four Eurofighter nations. But when the German Air Force began considering future combat aircraft requirements in 2017, potential partners with whom Berlin opened exploratory talks included not just France and Spain but also Sweden.

 

Sweden, however, initially aligned more closely with the UK as London began to develop its future combat air-capability roadmap. This would lead to the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) for a crewed combat aircraft, in which Italy, Japan and the UK participate as equal partners. Stockholm did not pursue participation in GCAP. Instead, it is currently carrying out national-level studies into combat air requirements beyond its Saab Gripen family.   - (ANA) - 

 

AB/ANA/13 June 2026 - - -