It was necessary to very quickly unblock this issue which had until now been undermined by divergent interests. The German and French Defense Ministers announced, Friday March 22, an agreement on the joint tank of the future project (MGCS) concerning the distribution of work between manufacturers.
“We have agreed on the distribution of all tasks for this major project,” German Minister Boris Pistorius said at a press conference alongside his French counterpart Sébastien Lecornu. “We have an agreement and we are delighted about it,” said the French minister, emphasizing the importance of this “structuring program for the land armies of the two countries, fundamentally structuring for Europe, even structuring for NATO.”
The MGCS program (English acronym for Main Land Combat System) was launched in 2017, at the same time as the Future Combat Aircraft (Scaf), another defense cooperation project between the two countries.
It aims to replace the French Leclerc tanks and the German Leopard 2 from 2035, while marking “a generational leap in technology” thanks to its “level of innovation” and its “connectivity”, underlined the French minister .
It will be financed equally
Boris Pistorius and Sébastien Lecornu called last year to give new impetus to this Franco-German project hampered by industrial rivalries and the divergent interests of Paris and Berlin. Financed equally by the two countries and carried out under German direction, it was originally led by KNDS, an entity created for the occasion between the French Nexter and the German KMW which manufactures the Leopard 2 battle tank.
The irruption into the program in 2019 of the German manufacturer Rheinmetall destabilized the structure and the planned distributions between manufacturers. The first step was therefore to clarify this question and the agreement reached “establishes very clearly that in terms of production, there will be a 50/50 distribution between the industries of the different nations”, Boris Pistorius said on Friday.
He acknowledged that these were “complicated negotiations […] and difficult”. This agreement will be formalized by the signing of a joint document on April 26, indicated the two ministers.