Merz urges France to stick to deal on joint fighter jet project

BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday France and Germany should stick to prior agreements on the configuration of the joint Franco-German fighter jet FCAS project, after a report earlier this week that France now wants a workshare of 80%.

Merz said he was in regular contact with French President Emmanuel Macron about the project, which is worth more than 100 billion euros ($117 billion) and has been plagued by delays and infighting over workshare and intellectual property rights.

The leaders of Europe's two largest economies are set to meet later this month in Berlin, two sources told Reuters.

"I am absolutely determined that we stick to the agreements we’ve made with France and Spain regarding FCAS," Merz told a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

France's Dassault Aviation, Airbus and Indra - the latter two representing Germany and Spain, respectively - are involved in the scheme to start replacing French Rafale and German and Spanish Eurofighters with a fifth-generation fighter jet from 2040.

Merz acknowledged there were still differing views, however, on how the consortium was to be composed.

"The questions regarding the differing views on how this consortium is composed have not yet been resolved," he said. "But I am confident that we will succeed in doing so."

France has told Germany it wants a workshare of some 80% in FCAS, a defence industry source told Reuters earlier this week, backing up a report by respected German defence publication Hartpunkt.

Should France follow through with its demand, this would scrap the agreed division of tasks, the industry source said, adding that the resulting differences among project partners would make it unlikely that the project could enter its next phase as scheduled by the end of this year.

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(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke; editing by Mark Heinrich)