France, Germany continue to work on fighter jet project, Macron says

NICOSIA, April 24 (Reuters) - French President ‌Emmanuel Macron and ​German ​Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday tasked their defence ministries with continuing to work on the contentious Franco-German FCAS fighter jet project, officials said.

Plans to ‌develop a futuristic air combat system together with Spain have been ⁠hanging by a thread amid a public dispute over control between France's Dassault Aviation and Airbus, which ‌represents Germany and Spain in the ‌100 billion euro ($116.85 billion) project.

"No, not at all," Macron said when asked by a reporter if the FCAS project was dead. The French president said he ​had just discussed the issue with Merz on the margins of a summit of EU leaders in Cyprus.

"We had a good discussion this morning with the chancellor, ⁠and we gave a mandate to our defence ministries to work precisely on several areas, on a range of ​different issues," he said. "Not just the future combat aircraft, but various levers of cooperation between our two countries."

A German government spokeswoman confirmed ​the discussion between the two leaders.

"The Chancellor and ‌the President instructed their defence ministers to continue working on various areas of cooperation and to agree on the next steps. This ⁠work will be completed in the coming weeks," the spokeswoman said.

On Wednesday, Germany and France's defence ministers had offered differing timelines for a decision on the fighter jet project, with one ⁠saying the two countries' leaders would decide soon and the other saying mediators had sought more time ​to discuss the matter.

The dispute centres on leadership of the core fighter element of plans to build an interconnected fleet of crewed planes and armed drones under a common digital umbrella.

Insiders have ‌been expecting Germany and France to abandon development of the joint fighter jet but continue cooperation on drones and the so-called ‌combat cloud, or digital backbone, which would enable data exchange between jets, drones and other ⁠sensors such as ground radar. But ‌rowing back the plan would ​be politically awkward for Macron.

($1 = 0.8558 euros)

(Reporting by Bertrand Boucey in Paris and Andreas Rinke in Nicosia; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by ‌Kate Mayberry)

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