(L-R) Boris Pistorius, Germany’s Defence Minister, Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG, and Sébastien Lecornu, France’s Defence Minister, stand in front of a Czech Leopard 2 A4 main battle tank during a visit to the Rheinmetall plant, amid the Franco-German MGCS tank project | File Photo: Michael Matthey/dpa
Berlin: German defence contractor Rheinmetall has warned that the future of a Franco-German tank project could be at risk amid concerns over potential French budget cuts.
“There is always a risk, but nothing has been decided yet,” Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper in comments released Saturday.
According to the newspaper, he said France is planning to drastically cut the budget for the joint Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) tank project. Papperger said this would mean delays: “If you have less money available, you don’t get any faster, and we are already very slow.”
The MGCS project, launched by the French and German governments, aims to replace the Leopard 2 and Leclerc main battle tanks with a cross-platform ground combat system by 2040, according to earlier statements.
In addition to Rheinmetall, the project involves the French Thales Group and KNDS – which emerged from the merger of German tank manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and French state-owned defence firm Nexter.
As an interim solution until the launch of the MGCS, the German companies involved – Rheinmetall and KNDS Germany – have already initiated the development of a new main battle tank, unofficially dubbed the “Leopard 3” by the military press.
The first units are due to enter service in the early 2030s, while the MGCS tank is not expected to be operational until the 2040s. “That’s an incredibly long time. I can’t say today whether there will even be an MGCS,” Papperger told Welt am Sonntag.
His comments come after another major Franco-German defence project was scrapped this week. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of the planned multi-billion-euro Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS) fighter jet project, citing disagreements between the companies Dassault and Airbus during the negotiations.
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