French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are expected to discuss the troubled Future Combat Air System on the margins of the EU summit, as industrial conflict between Dassault and Airbus raises fresh doubts over one of Europe’s largest defence programmes.

BRUSSELS — French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are expected to discuss the future of the Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, on the sidelines of the European Council in the latest sign that one of Europe’s most ambitious defence projects has moved beyond an industrial dispute and into the political sphere.

The programme, launched in 2017 by France and Germany and later joined by Spain, is intended to deliver a next-generation air combat system built around a new manned fighter, connected drones and digital combat systems. The project is valued at about €100 billion and is intended eventually to replace France’s Rafale and the Eurofighter fleets used by Germany and Spain.

The immediate problem is a prolonged dispute between Dassault Aviation, which leads the fighter aircraft pillar, and Airbus, which represents German and Spanish industrial interests in the programme. The main disagreement concerns control of the next phase, especially the flying demonstrator, with Dassault seeking clearer authority over the core fighter and Airbus arguing for continued parity between the partners.

That dispute has become increasingly public in recent weeks. On 4 March, Reuters reported that Dassault chief executive Éric Trappier said the fighter part of FCAS would be effectively “dead” if Airbus did not co-operate on terms he regarded as workable. Reuters separately reported the same day that Dassault continued to warn of unresolved tensions even as the company published stronger annual results.

Airbus has also hardened its line. In February Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury said the company would be capable of developing a fighter aircraft alone if required, and that Airbus would support a two-fighter solution if governments chose that route. Those remarks underlined how far the programme had moved from a single shared design towards a possible split outcome.

The political sensitivity is sharpened by the wider uncertainty surrounding European defence planning. In February, Merz publicly questioned whether Germany still required a future manned fighter in the form envisaged under FCAS, at a time when Berlin was also seeking additional F-35 aircraft as the European programme continued to struggle. Taken together, these developments have fuelled concern that Germany may scale back its commitment to FCAS or turn more decisively towards off-the-shelf US equipment if the present deadlock continues.

The significance of a Macron-Merz discussion now is therefore less about an immediate technical solution than about whether the two governments still see FCAS as a strategic requirement worth preserving in its present form. Any cancellation would ultimately have to be decided at national leadership level, not by the companies alone. Macron had pushed back against the idea that an industrial quarrel should be allowed to determine a strategic state decision.

For Europe, the stakes go beyond one aircraft. FCAS has long been presented as a test of whether major European states can jointly design and build a top-tier combat aviation system rather than rely more heavily on US platforms. A failure would not merely disrupt a procurement timetable; it would weaken a central argument behind European defence-industrial autonomy. If FCAS were to collapse, Germany could look more closely at the rival GCAP programme involving the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan, while Airbus could pursue other partnerships, potentially including Saab.

There is still no sign that a decisive settlement is close. The project remains suspended between continuation, redesign and partial fragmentation. Even if Macron and Merz agree that FCAS must be preserved, its industrial structure remains unresolved, and the tension between political ambition and commercial control has yet to be settled.

For a defence audience, that makes FCAS more than a procurement story. It is now a measure of whether Europe can reconcile national industrial champions, operational requirements and political claims about strategic autonomy within a single major capability programme. The Macron-Merz discussion may not settle that question this week, but it will indicate whether Paris and Berlin are still prepared to try.