February 23, 2023 | International, Land
GM Defense sizes up market for electric tactical rides at IDEX
The carmaker's defense subsidiary is banking on its commercial heritage to find military customers.
October 8, 2019 | International, Aerospace
Arms firms fret over delays in Franco-German fighter project
PARIS — France's Dassault Aviation and Europe's Airbus have stepped up pressure on France and Germany to agree the next stage of a planned fighter project, warning Europe's arms industry and long-term security could suffer from delays.
The two companies are the leading industrial partners in a project to build a futuristic swarm of manned and unmanned warplanes, announced by the leaders of France and Germany two years ago and expanded earlier this year to include Spain.
Dassault and Airbus won a 65-million-euro contract in January to develop the concept for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) but await a new contract to build demonstrators for interlinked fighters, drones and an “air combat cloud” by 2026.
Dassault Aviation Chief Executive Eric Trappier told a conference of policymakers last month that the demonstrator contract should have been launched in September but this was now slipping towards end-year. He called it “indispensable” to avoid any further delays in order to maintain the 2026 deadline.
No reason has been given for the delays.
On Monday evening, Dassault and Airbus amplified those warnings with a joint statement.
“If Europe does not move forward — and move forward quickly — on this program, it will be impossible to maintain the development and production capabilities needed for a sovereign defense industry,” the companies said.
The warplane system is expected to be operational from 2040, with a view to replacing Dassault's Rafale and the four-nation Eurofighter, in which Airbus represents both Germany and Spain.
The new project faces competition from Britain and its plans for a new combat jet dubbed “Tempest”.
The fighter developments have split the current Eurofighter consortium and led to a shake-up of industrial alliances as Italy joins Eurofighter partner Britain on Tempest, turning its back on Germany and Spain, while Sweden has opened the door to abandoning its independent stance by co-operating on Tempest.
The FCAS is also overshadowed by differences between France and Germany over export policy after Germany imposed a ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia over the death of killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi a year ago by Saudi operatives.
The ban, recently extended to March, has raised questions over a long-delayed Saudi border systems contract run by Airbus.
Airbus Defence and Space Chief Executive Dirk Hoke called in a magazine interview last week for the export ban to be relaxed. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has said there is no reason for the moratorium to be lifted.
France and Germany are expected to discuss the issue at ministerial meetings this week.
AIRBUS SETBACK IN SPAIN
Airbus meanwhile faces a battle to shore up its position as a top defense contractor in Spain after losing its place as the representative of Spain's interests on the upcoming fighter project to local defense electronics firm Indra Sistemas.
Spain last month named Indra as contractor for the Spanish share of the Franco-German-led FCAS project, displacing Airbus from the Spanish coordinator role it had held on Eurofighter.
Airbus officials have pledged to try to overturn the move but a Spanish defense source told Reuters there was no change in the decision.
Indra declined to comment.
Publicly, Airbus has said it was surprised by the decision but has pledged to continue to defend Spain's best interests.
Dassault will meanwhile mark a long-awaited milestone on Tuesday when it delivers the first of 36 Rafales to India, the culmination of a fighter procurement process that lasted almost 20 years and involved the cancellation of a much larger deal.
La Tribune reported on Monday that France and India were discussing a possible repeat order for 36 more Rafales. (Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo Gonzalez in Madrid, Tassilo Hummel in Berlin, Editing by Deepa Babington)
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April 29, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Back hard-hit businesses? Experts press EU to instead boost defense spending
By: Tom Kington ROME — Defense experts are concerned that Europe's newfound commitment to joint defense spending may be cast aside as the European Union diverts cash into economies hammered by the coronavirus lockdown. The scenario was discussed in a webinar hosted by Italy's IAI think tank on April 8. And last week, Polish and German experts wrote of the risk that the fledgling European Defence Fund will be savagely cut. Then on April 27, eight experts issued an appeal to EU policymakers, arguing that rather than cutting defense funds to free up money to support hard-hit businesses, they should do the opposite and beef up defense spending. With so many high-tech jobs in the defense industry, “specific support for this sector will be needed to mitigate the economic crisis' effects and preserve the long-term future of Europe,” wrote the experts, who hail from Spain, Italy, the U.K., France and Lithuania. According to the letter, the EU plans to pack its 2021-2027 budget with measures to limit a recession some economists believe will follow the pandemic. Economists have also warned such a recession would dwarf the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. “Undoubtedly it will focus on critical sectors such as health or energy. We believe that the defence sector should be included in such critical sectors and that a revised version of the [budget] should be the opportunity to reassert a truly ambitious budget for the European Defence Fund,” the experts wrote. Apart from shoring up defense jobs, feeding the European Defence Fund would help defend the EU as threats grow, they wrote. “Indeed, COVID-19 will not stop or mitigate the ongoing worsening of the international security environment threatening European security and interests. On the contrary, it is likely to make the world more unstable and more insecure,” they added. Defense spending had been slashed after 2008, the experts said, and faces a similar fate now, just as “Europe is trying to develop next-generation fighter aircraft, main battle tanks, frigates and other capabilities such as unmanned systems crucial for its military and technological edge.” Cutting budgets would not only increase Europe's dependency on “third states” but would “significantly hinder the credibility of European nations as military partners, notably within NATO,” they added. Prior to the spread of coronavirus, pressure had grown inside the EU to halve the €13 billion (U.S. $14 billion) planned for the European Defence Fund during 2021-2027. Now, the EU should halt any plans to cut the fund and instead increase it, the experts wrote. “As Europe gradually emerges from the pandemic, there [cannot be a] secure ‘new normal' without a solid European defence,” they concluded. The letter's release coincided with a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that found total global military spending rose 3.6 percent in 2019 to $1.917 trillion — marking the largest annual growth in spending since 2010. The think tank report also found that U.S. spending grew by 5.3 percent to a total of $732 billion in 2019, at 38 percent of the global total. The increase alone in U.S. spending was roughly equal to the entire budget of Germany. The European country's military spending rose by 10 percent last year to $49.3 billion, which the think tank said was the largest increase in spending among the top 15 military spenders in 2019. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/04/27/back-hard-hit-businesses-experts-press-eu-to-instead-boost-defense-spending/
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May 31, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Contracts for May 28, 2021
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