(
opex360, (fr) nov.12)
Bundestag threatens to block Future Air Combat System and Franco-German battle tank
In June 2021, the Finance Committee of the Bundestag [lower house of the German Parliament] decided to release the budget needed to launch Phase 1B of the Future Air Combat System, a programme led by France in cooperation with Germany and Spain. However, German MPs refused to sign a blank cheque as they only agreed to a fraction of the amount they were asked to vote.
This decision of the Bundestag then allowed the signature of Implementation Agreement No. 3 [IA3] by the three involved. This theoretically paved the way for the development of demonstrators. However, as the prime contractor for the new generation fighter aircraft that is to be at the centre of the "system of systems" that the SCAF is to be, Dassault Aviation intends to retain the levers that will enable it to fulfil the role for which it has been designated. This is what Airbus is contesting. Hence the stalemate that still persists today... and which means that the programme is at a standstill.
Another project involving Germany and France is also bogged down, again due to disagreements between the manufacturers concerned. Indeed, the Main Ground Combat System [MGCS - future combat tank] is still at the architecture study stage, which has been extended several times, due to the lack of agreement between Rheinemetall [imposed by Berlin although this was not initially planned] and Nexter on the gun and ammunition of the future tank.
As a result of these blockages, in France the idea of a "plan B", in particular for the SCAF, is more and more often openly mentioned during parliamentary debates, including by members of the current majority. This was the case during the debate on the 2023 budget for the "Defence" mission on 27 October in the National Assembly. "Let us not be naive in the face of difficulties. Our voluntarism should not lead us to ignore the risks of failure of the cooperation undertaken, a fortiori when they come up against blockages that are multiplying", said, for example, Mounir Belhamiti [Renaissance] in the Chamber.
The Bundestag also discussed the future of such cooperation when, on 11 November, it decided to increase German military spending to 50.1 billion euros in 2023 and to release a first tranche of 8.4 billion euros of the 100 billion euros to be allocated to the special fund for modernising the Bundeswehr.
Thus, a "resolution" was adopted in the margin of these budgetary discussions. As a reminder, at the time of launching the SCAF and the MGCS, the members of parliament from across the Rhine had demanded that these two projects be advanced at the "same pace" and that the interests of German industry be better taken into account.
However, according to the text that it has just adopted, the Bundestag considers that these two conditions are not currently being met... even though they are essential in its eyes to free up new resources in the future. The Bundestag therefore calls on the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz to take the necessary steps to ensure that the MGCS and the SCAF progress at the same pace "as quickly as possible".
In addition, it also asks him to "exhaust all possibilities to bring to a successful conclusion agreements that are particularly necessary for industry", in particular with a view to "consolidating the German land armaments industry", to ensure that partner countries "cooperate with each other on an equal footing" and to extend the measures taken in favour of the development, production and availability of "national key technologies" for Germany. "This includes, in particular, the participation of German companies in national and international demonstration projects," the resolution states.
The fact remains that, unless a pretext is found for calling them into question, linking the MGCS and the SCAF makes no sense, given that these are two programmes of a fundamentally different nature in terms of the issues at stake and that each has its own timetable...
Clearly, to establish a sort of parallelism between them would be to paralyse them. This is what Florence Parly argued when she was Minister of the Armed Forces. What is more, while it has voted the necessary credits for phase 1B of the SCAF, the Bundestag has not yet done the same to move on to the MCGS stage...
/deepl
