Airbus CEO Urges Fighter Merger

(Source: The Sunday Times; published Nov. 24, 2019)

The new chief executive of Airbus has called for a single European fighter jet programme and warned that the continent needs to bolster its defence industry.

The intervention by Guillaume Faury, who took over at the aerospace giant in April, comes amid tensions over Brexit and the Nato transatlantic alliance.

Faury, previously boss of Airbus’s commercial aircraft and helicopter divisions, said it would make sense to combine Europe’s two next-generation combat aircraft programmes — Tempest, which involves the UK, Italy and Sweden, and a Franco-German initiative.

“Europe needs one strong project for securing its air and space sovereignty,” he said. “Can we do one project today at the time of Brexit? Probably not. So, it’s important that the FCAS [Franco-German project] keeps moving forward. Will there be a possibility to have one European project at a later stage? I hope so.”

Europe is wrestling with questions over defence and sovereignty amid calls from Donald Trump for a bigger financial contribution to Nato, particularly by Germany. (end of excerpt)

Click here for the full story, on the Sunday Times website.

Click here for the full interview, on the Sunday Times website.

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