SCAF : France, Germany and Spain plans to spend €8.6 billion

France, Germany, and Spain have agreed to fund the future European air combat system.

[Fighter jet]

France, Germany, and Spain have agreed to fund the future European air combat system, which is expected to replace existing combat aircraft around 2040. The three nations want to spend €3.6 billion on defining demonstrations by 2024, and a further €5 billion on the following phase, which will last until 2027.

The future European air combat system soap opera is far from done, but a big step forward was taken on Monday evening with the signature of a $3.06 billion finance deal by France, Germany, and Spain for the program's next phase, dubbed "1B" This will allow the SCAF program's key industrial partners, Dassault, Airbus, Safran, MTU, and ITP, to complete the technological definition of the demonstrations of the future combat aircraft, its engine, and its drones, which are slated for 2027.

This agreement reaffirms and concretizes the pledges made to the German parliament on May 17 in order to secure approval before the general election campaign on September 26 begins across the Rhine. Above all, it marks the three European countries' greatest financial investment since Paris and Berlin launched the SCAF initiative in 2017. As so, it provides a further assurance of the program's survival for a program that has been severely interrupted in recent months and on which the future of European security is predicated on the year 2040.

“Over the next three years, France, Germany, and Spain have agreed to pay 3.6 billion euros at a rate of 1.2 billion euros per country. In comparison, the States have only spent 250 million euros on the SCAF program since 2017. As a result of this arrangement, we have radically changed scale,” Florence Parly, the office of the Minister of the Armed Forces, explains.

When you add in the tentative budget of 5 billion euros contained in the agreement for phase 2 of demonstration production, which runs from 2024 to 2027, the entire amount of obligations comes to 8.6 billion euros spread out over seven years. This is a figure equal to what we know about the American army's spending on future sixth-generation combat aircraft, and far more than the pledges made by the UK and its Italian and Swedish allies for the rival European project known as "Tempest".

Future missions of SCAF

In addition to the monetary agreement, the chiefs of staff of the three air forces in France, Germany, and Spain have reached an essential agreement on the operational capabilities of this future fighting system. As a result, we know it will have a sixth-generation manned combat aircraft and accompanying drones, all of which will be connected to a virtual network - a mini-cloud - that will be secure. However, he still needed to agree on the objectives he would be able to do, which was not easy given that France and Germany do not share the same military philosophy or needs. It appears to be completed now.

It was particularly important for the French army to ensure that future combat aircraft could operate from an aircraft carrier and perhaps carry nuclear bombs. And this, despite the fact that Germany and Spain do not have an aircraft carrier (and have no plans to construct one) and are unlikely to deploy a nuclear weapon outside of NATO's tight guidelines, with only American planes and equipment. This is also why, in addition to a batch of Eurofighters and its commitment to the SCAF program, Germany will buy 45 American F-18s in 2020.

The deal signed on Monday, however, does not eliminate all doubts. On the political front, the 5 billion euro budget for phase 2 must still be approved by the German parliament's new majority, which will be elected on September 26.

On the industrial front, things are also far from resolved. Even if "we are delighted with this agreement" at Dassault Aviation, the aircraft's prime contractor, "the contracts [with the industrialists, Editor's note] have not yet been signed" and "the negotiations continue," we must remember that "the contracts [with the industrialists, Editor's note] have not yet been signed" and that "the negotiations continue."

State negotiations on expenses, but also, it appears, on the precise division of obligations among the French, Germans, and Spaniards. Despite the fact that Airbus and Dassault announced a tentative agreement in April. Enough to keep the story of the birth of future European combat aircraft going for a while.