Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury heads a group that does not settle for being top in the world for in civil aviation. He is also a key player in Europe’s space and defense industries and spoke to Le Monde at a time when the war at the EU’s borders raises crucial questions about European sovereignty.
After two years of war in Ukraine, what lessons have you drawn from the conflict for Airbus and the defense industry in general?
We have clearly entered a new cycle, where many things have begun to change. Defense budgets, which had been declining for 40 years, are recovering, even if the budgetary equation is more difficult to solve in the wake of a health crisis. Defense is regaining its rightful place as a guarantee of sovereignty, independence and prosperity, and at European level, we are no longer involved in exotic debates about whether defense is “sustainable.” The facts are there for all to see, when a powerful, aggressive, nearby country has put the need to be able to defend ourselves back at the center. We are seeing the major financial institutions, as well as private banks, talking to each other to reverse the course of a disengagement that was an anomaly. It is once again legitimate to finance the defense sector.
On March 5, the Commission urged the 27 member states to invest and make joint purchases to reduce their dependence on the US and strengthen their sovereignty. Are these initiatives credible and sufficient?
Europe must be recognized for its efforts to create a framework for greater cooperation. What has been presented is a step in the right direction, and I hope that countries will take advantage of it for joint projects. But there are budgetary constraints, and a priority given to munitions and artillery in the short term, and new battlefields (cyber, space…) to integrate. Defense is the sole responsibility of individual states. Europe cannot decide for others. I would add that the programs that have been launched must succeed.
Isn’t the Future Air Combat System (SCAF) threatened by competing projects?
Considerable effort has gone into building the seven pillars of the SCAF (aircraft, UAVs, engines, combat cloud, etc.), but it will not come into effect until 2040. We must therefore continue to support existing capabilities and the development of in-service combat aircraft such as the Rafale and Eurofighter. At the same time, we must continue to safeguard funding for the SCAF’s later phases, otherwise we’ll have a problem. Instead of building the Europe of defense, we would continue to fragment it, as we have done with the Rafale, the Eurofighter and the Swedish Gripen. There may come a time when new partners join the SCAF (a Franco-German-Spanish project), or the GCAP (UK-Italy-Japan) program.
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