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(Adds comments by German defence minister)
By Tangi Salaün
PARIS, April 20 (Reuters) - French and German defence
ministers on Tuesday set a deadline of the end of April to
broker a deal over the future of a next-generation combat jet,
Europe's largest defence project.
Earlier this month, the European companies involved in the
project concluded talks with an agreement on how to share work
on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), an array of manned and
unmanned warplanes backed by France, Germany and Spain.
There are still differences over engine development and
intellectual property rights.
"We both think the same thing: we need a deal by the end of
April and I am confident we can get there together," French
Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told a joint news
conference after talks in Paris.
Parly described the political negotiations on the flagship
European defence project as frank. German Defence Minister
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said there were "very tangible
interests" at stake.
"We as politicians expect the industry to jointly find a
viable basis (for the next steps of the project) which we can
accept," she added, saying there were various open questions
such as the lack of an agreement about handling intellectual
property.
"We have made it very clear again that we expect this in the
coming days because otherwise we will run into problems sticking
to the time frame. And we don't want FCAS to be delayed for
several months because we cannot start parliamentary discussions
in time," Kramp-Karrenbauer added.
The FCAS is designed to replace the Eurofighter, developed
by Airbus, Britain's BAE Systems and Italy's Leonardo, and the
Rafale made by France's Dassault, from 2040.
The industrial agreement on the share of work saw Dassault
Aviation win leadership of the fighter plane while
Airbus, representing Germany and Spain, has a
two-thirds overall share of the project.
Defence procurement is a sensitive topic in Germany,
especially in an election year. The vote means the project faces
tight deadlines in a country where the powerful parliamentary
budget committee has a decisive say.
(Reporting by Tangi Salaun, Benoit Van Overstraeten and Sabine
Siebold; Writing by GV De Clercq and Richard Lough; Editing by
Alison Williams, Peter Graff and David Gregorio)
