FCAS and Saab: Europe’s Future Combat Air System at a Crossroads

The Future Combat Air System has long been promoted as the flagship proof of European defence cohesion, yet it is increasingly mired in doubt. As Paris and Berlin dispute control and technology, Stockholm is being approached as a potential partner; Saab’s management, however, has stated that any collaboration would be subject to firm conditions. This position is compelling governments and companies to address difficult matters avoided since the programme began in 2017.

The fragile state of Europe’s future combat air system

Launched in 2017 by France and Germany, before Spain subsequently joined, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS, known as SCAF in French) centres on the Next Generation Fighter (NGF). This stealth aircraft is intended to succeed the Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon from about 2045.

Political messaging was central to the scheme from its earliest days. European leaders cast it as a measure of European “strategic autonomy” and a response to aviation projects from the United States and Britain. Fundamental questions, however, were never resolved: which partner would head each workstream, who would hold the relevant technologies, and which countries could export equipment, to whom and on what terms.

FCAS has become less a clean-sheet programme and more a stack of political trade-offs, now reaching breaking point.

Since 2025, these outstanding disputes have become more entrenched. French and German representatives have clashed over industrial control, software architecture and access to sensitive information. Delays have mounted, while Berlin has discreetly started considering alternatives, including closer engagement with Sweden’s Saab.

Why Berlin is looking beyond Paris

Germany is dealing with two pressures at once: an ageing aircraft inventory and voters concerned about escalating expenditure. The Eurofighter and Tornado require replacement measures long before 2045, while the war in Ukraine has increased the need for rapid, credible capability improvements.

Relations with France over FCAS have also proved uneven. German representatives object to what they regard as French control of the NGF pillar through Dassault Aviation. Their French counterparts, meanwhile, worry that conceding too much to Berlin would weaken both their painstakingly developed combat-aircraft expertise and their freedom to export.

With the timetable slipping and Paris treating the 2045 service-entry date as fixed, Germany faces a difficult position. Bringing FCAS forward appears impractical, but leaving would entail political and financial consequences. Sweden therefore becomes relevant.

Sweden’s appeal: a full-spectrum jet maker outside NATO’s big clubs

Saab provides a capability that is unusual in Europe: the ability to deliver a complete fighter aircraft, from design and systems integration to sustained in-service support. Its Gripen programme has demonstrated that Sweden can produce a modern, manoeuvrable combat aircraft at comparatively moderate cost.

For Berlin, stronger industrial cooperation with Saab could offer several benefits:

• an additional design and systems partner outside the French-German duopoly
• proven experience of efficient development through the Gripen C/D and E versions
• an export partner with greater political flexibility than the United States
• a means of showing Paris that Germany has alternatives if FCAS falters

This possible alignment has given Saab a degree of leverage it did not expect. The Swedish company is making use of it.

Saab’s conditions: cooperation, yes – technology handover, no

During a much-discussed interview with a German newspaper, Saab’s chief executive stated that the company is willing to work with Airbus and Germany. He nevertheless set out unequivocal limits.

Saab wants partnership without losing what makes it unique: full control over its fighter-jet know‑how and design authority.

The Swedish position is essentially built around three principal requirements:

These requirements go directly to the disputes that have troubled FCAS for years: ownership of intellectual property and the right to employ it in later projects without seeking approval.

Why intellectual property has become the real battlefield

Within contemporary air-combat projects, software, mission systems and digital design instruments can be more significant than the airframe. Businesses protect such assets closely because they support later programmes, upgrades and export opportunities.

France has maintained that Dassault should keep unambiguous authority over the NGF’s basic design, as well as important flight-control and stealth technologies. Germany and Airbus have pressed for a more evenly shared arrangement, arguing that their financial contribution and industrial importance warrant joint accountability.

Saab is now indicating that it will not reproduce patterns from previous multinational initiatives, in which smaller participants say they became subcontractors with little influence over design and limited access to vital software building blocks.

Behind talk of “European cooperation” lies a blunt question: who gets to design the jet that comes after this one?

The 2045 lock and Europe’s capability gap

Timing creates a further major restriction. Paris has linked the FCAS programme to the NGF entering service in 2045. The French Air and Space Force has based its long-term planning on that deadline, using Rafale upgrades to cover the intervening period.

Changing this objective would affect budgets, maintenance arrangements and export plans. Paris is consequently reluctant either to accelerate the project or to alter it fundamentally. Berlin, by contrast, will encounter operational shortfalls sooner as older aircraft are withdrawn.

This lack of alignment creates a strategic choice:

• remain with FCAS in its present form and tolerate ageing fleets for an extended period
• pursue parallel or alternative routes, including closer work with Sweden or the UK’s Tempest/Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP)
• procure additional off-the-shelf US equipment, increasing dependence on Washington

Every route carries financial, industrial and political drawbacks. Saab’s approach introduces one more consideration into calculations that are already highly complicated.

Industrial rivalry wrapped in European politics

FCAS concerns more than engineering diagrams; it is also a question of standing. France regards itself as Europe’s sole full-spectrum combat-air power, possessing nuclear-capable fighters, a carrier air wing and a permanent expeditionary posture. After years of underinvestment, Germany is seeking a more substantial place in European defence. Sweden, having recently moved closer to NATO, aims to retain its hard-won autonomy while gaining access to larger markets.

Trust is limited within this three-way relationship. French officials are concerned that a grouping could leave Dassault isolated in its own flagship programme. German industry is hesitant about replacing one dominant participant, Dassault, with another, Saab. Swedish decision-makers are wary of becoming involved in Franco-German political arguments that bear little relation to Stockholm’s principal security concerns.

The debate is less about one jet than about how Europe organises its defence industry for the next thirty years.

Export rules, US pressure and British competition

Export policy adds another layer of difficulty. Germany has frequently stopped or held up arms sales on human-rights grounds, including sales of platforms containing French parts. Sweden has likewise experienced domestic debate over arms exports. Any jointly developed fighter will require a reliable and predictable export arrangement, otherwise its commercial case will be weakened.

External pressures are rising too. The United States supplies advanced fighters but anticipates political alignment in exchange. Britain, Italy and Japan are advancing the competing GCAP programme, presenting their own case for leading-edge technology and digital design.

For Saab, becoming too closely attached to either side could reduce its freedom of action. This helps account for the company’s determination to preserve its own aircraft-design capability and maintain a clear boundary around its intellectual property.

What “technology transfer” actually means in a fighter project

Although “technology transfer” can appear to be an abstract expression, in an FCAS-scale project it refers to highly specific assets:

• source code for flight-control and mission software
• methods for stealth shaping and material formulations
• digital models employed in simulation and testing
• encryption tools and secure data connections
• production methods for crucial components

Providing these assets enables partners to support and improve aircraft independently. It also supplies the foundations for subsequent aircraft programmes. For a firm such as Saab, releasing them without stringent safeguards could undermine its competitiveness over the long term.

That is why Sweden’s call for cooperation without extensive transfer is so sensitive. It raises the question of whether genuine co-development can work when every participant closely protects its most valuable technologies.

Possible scenarios for the next decade

Defence planners around Europe are privately assessing a range of outcomes. In one, FCAS continues but in a reduced or reorganised version, with more clearly defined workshares and firmer divisions between national and common technologies. Saab could contribute to particular subsystems, including electronic warfare or sensors, instead of becoming a full NGF co-designer.

A second possibility is a loose “network of programmes”: a French-German-Spanish core fighter, a Swedish offshoot based on Gripen heritage, and broad interoperability rather than complete integration. Under this model, shared data links, weapons and cloud-based combat systems would carry greater weight than a single common aircraft type.

The most hazardous outcome would be a lasting impasse. It would bring additional slippage, higher costs and a growing capability shortfall precisely as threats become more serious on Europe’s eastern flank. Governments might then be pushed back towards rapid US procurements, weakening the very rationale for a sovereign European fighter programme.

At present, Saab’s requirements do not end FCAS, but they reveal its fundamental divisions. Any eventual agreement with Sweden must reconcile three objectives: safeguarding national industrial assets, delivering aircraft punctually, and preventing partners from being confined to subordinate positions. How that balance is achieved will influence not merely Europe’s next fighter, but also the political shape of European defence for decades.