PARIS (Reuters) – The future combat aircraft (Scaf) project, developed jointly between France, Germany and Spain, could welcome possible new partners, says Airbus executive chairman Guillaume Faury , in an interview with Le Monde published on Saturday.
The European aircraft manufacturer is also participating in the Scaf project, alongside the Dassault Aviation group.
“We must continue to protect the financing of the later phases of the Scaf, otherwise there will be a problem. Instead of building the Europe of defense, we would continue to fragment it, as we did with the Rafale, the ‘Eurofighter and the Swedish Gripen,’ declares Guillaume Faury.
“Perhaps a time will come when new partners will join Scaf, or the GCAP program,” he adds.
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The GCAP program is a separate initiative between the United Kingdom, Japan and Italy to jointly develop a new generation of combat aircraft.
Launched in 2017 by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a time when the European Union was weakened by the British decision to leave the community bloc and by the migrant crisis, the Scaf project has since been the source recurring tensions between France and Germany.
Last April, Spain said it was willing to expand the Scaf project to other countries.
(Written by Blandine Hénault)
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