During a meeting in Paris on 23 January 2025, German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, and his French counterpart, Sébastien Lecornu, discussed the main priorities for the Franco-German cooperation for the next months. In this occasion, they announced some relevant industrial and operational agreements between the two countries, namely on the MGCS project, the Franco-German squadron and the Franco-German brigade.
The two ministers signed an industrial workshare agreement for the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) project. Pistorius stressed that this is an “important significant progress”, adding that the “way is now clear for a joint project company of the four corporations”. Representatives of these companies – KNDS France, KNDS Deutschland, Thales, and Rheinmetall – signed a Shareholder Agreement in the presence of the ministers.
These two deals pave the way for the creation of a joint project company (apparently Project Company Gmbh). To be based in Cologne, this company will be the sole point of contact and will conclude the subcontracts. The deals signed on Thursday allow for the beginning of Phase A1 (development and technological capability demonstration), thus revitalising a project that was initiated in 2012 but remained stalled so far.
The MGCS aims at developing a family of ground combat vehicles that will replace German LEOPARD 2 and French LECLERC tanks and, in perspective, will renew the whole heavy component of the respective armies. Initially scheduled for 2035, the expected operational readiness was pushed to around 2040 due to disagreements on the workshare and technology choices. Political tensions occurred between Paris and Berlin, and funding issues, together with a prioritisation of the Future Combat Aircraft System (FCAS), are additional factors for the delay.
The relevant stakeholders finally found an agreement on some crucial aspects of the project in April 2024, with the signature of the industrial workshare agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding. These formalised a 50-50 workshare between the companies involved, and the responsibility for the 8 technological pillars to be developed, namely Pillar 1 (platforms and automated navigation) and Pillar 7 (protection and defence against drones) for Germany, and Pillar 3 (innovative fires, in particular missiles) and Pillar 6 (sensors) for France.
The contracts signed this Thursday are an important step forward for the MGCS, but a rapid kick off and a continued political support are now needed to keep the current schedule – completion of the overall system demonstrator phase (GSDP) in 2028 and series production readiness in 2040-2045.
Ministers Pistorius and Lecornu also signed a new technical agreement to strengthen the Franco-German air transport squadron based in Evreux. Created in 2021 and declared fully operational in 2024, the squadron is a “complete success for both sides”, ministers said, “as the redeployment for an humanitarian operation in the Gaza strip demonstrates”.
The third agreement concerns a three-year availability of the Franco-German Brigade to the NATO Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE) headquartered in Szczecin (Poland). The objective is the participation to NATO-led exercises in Easter Europe in 2025, and a first mission on the Alliance’s Eastern flank in 2026.
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