At its centre was a multi-purpose sixth-generation fighter connected to a combat cloud. It was meant to reduce Europe's dependency on the American F-35.

“A sixth-generation fighter is like the next generation of mobile phones: it includes all or most existing tasks plus some significantly more advanced or even revolutionary features,” Andrea Gilli, defence expert at the University of St Andrews, told me.

Three of Europe's biggest aerospace companies were behind what was billed as the largest European defence programme in a century. Dassault led the fighter programme for France, Airbus represented Germany and Spain, and Spain's Indra took a share.

Dassault and Airbus were co-equals in the aircraft design, and from the outset, that meant a clash over leadership that would not be resolved. Dassault wanted the authority that usually comes with being the lead company running the project. Airbus wanted shared management.

Despite a mediation launched in spring 2026 to break the deadlock, it was nine years too late. At the beginning of June, Germany, in agreement with France, announced the end of the project.

“I don't think the problem was technical. France and Germany possess some of the most advanced aerospace companies in the world. The main problem was about industrial leadership. Neither wanted to share the critical role,” Gilli said.

A similar programme, the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), with Britain, Italy and Japan has, for now, avoided the same fate. BAE Systems, Leonardo and Japan's industrial consortium each hold a third in a single joint venture.

What differs from FCAS is that one company acts as the design authority rather than three rivals holding mutual vetoes, and leadership rotates.

Why does this matter?

FCAS and GCAP are attempts to change how Europe builds defence. For now, Europe does not buy weapons as a single entity, unlike the US, Russia or China.

Instead, it buys as 27 separate states, each with its own national champion to protect, and in the end, it leaves Europe with smaller players on a big world stage. Together, European countries are today the largest military arms importers in the world.

Europe’s procurement structure is a weakness. “When a national champion can outlast ministers, resist political pressure, and remain indispensable to the state's core defence requirements, there is an organisational problem beyond political theatre,” wrote Nathan Decety for the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Many analysts point in the same direction: Europe should operate like the US Department of Defense. Award a single prime contractor the authority of the contract, and have other companies work beneath them as subcontractors.

Bertrand de Cordoue, defence advisor at the Institut Jacques Delors, argues the deadlock “is actually the main obstacle facing the FCAS project, and one it would likely not face had it been entrusted to a single prime contractor.”

Gilli, however, takes issue with analysts who reach that conclusion. “You wonder whether some of these people want to strengthen European defence or wreck it,” he said.

“A single buyer for multi-purpose platforms has created a lot of disasters in the US: the Littoral Combat Ship, the Future Combat System and, financially, the F-35.”

For Gilli, learning from FCAS starts with abandoning the dream of one perfect aircraft that does everything for everyone. “In Europe, we need at least three types of next-generation fighters: for air-to-air, for air-to-ground and for naval missions,” he said.

“It would be much better to have multiple, specialised aircraft for each of these missions rather than a single, multipurpose, extremely expensive aircraft.”

Fragmentation, in other words, may not always be the enemy. The FCAS failure was pretending that three countries with different needs and different budgets wanted the same plane. It also showed how countries have failed to impose their will on the companies they bankroll.