Aviation News – Germany and France have agreed to abandon a flagship project to develop a next-generation European fighter jet after failing to overcome longstanding industrial disputes between the companies involved. The decision marks a significant setback for one of Europe’s most ambitious defence initiatives and raises new questions about future military cooperation on the continent.
Having two separate programs is pretty bad still. It reinforces the existing lack of interoperability across EU systems. Makes both more expensive too. If that’s an economic stimulus exercise, there are more efficient ways to do that than military spending.
Considering that the French wanted a plane that could deliver nukes from an aircraft carrier and the Germans wanted a fast fighter jet, just making them two separate planes that merely rely on the same interfaces where appropriate might not be such a bad idea.
The US currently has four different fighter jets or similar in service and China has nine looking at Wikipedia. So no not really a problem, if they are different enough planes, as designed for different tasks. It currently looks like they will be with France building a small, light carrier capable jet and Germany a larger, long range, heavy, fast ground based one.