Kurz vor der heutigen Sorbonne-Rede von Macron um 11 Uhr, in der große #EUVision 🇪🇺 erwartet werden darf, kam es auch zu einer wichtigen #EUDefence-Einigung 🇫🇷🇩🇪 im Monnet‘schen #DenkEuropaMit-Geist! Bravo!
#PulseofEurope
„This is groundbreaking military ...equipment“
Von Peter Carstens, Michaela Wiegel
Germany and France have debated over a joint battle tank for a long time. Now, both ministers of defence have agreed on the project. In an interview with the F.A.Z. they talk about the details.
Mister Pistorius, Mister Lecornu, the project „Joint Battle Tank“ dates back to 2012. You now want to sign the memorandum of understanding. Will it become concrete after all?
Boris Pistorius: Yes, it is becoming very concrete. Sébastien and I have been very personally involved in the project from day one of my term of office. After several months of intensive negotiations and a lot of detailed work at working level, we can now present a result. We tied the knot at a dinner in the Villa Borsig in Berlin. The working groups then drew up a document, which we will sign together in Paris on Friday. This will be followed by the drafting of the agreement. The detailed contract should be ready at the beginning of next year, which is ambitious. So yes, things are getting concrete - at last!
Sébastien Lecornu: We are already designing the new generation of tanks for 2040. The Americans still haven't started thinking about the future of the Abrams tank. The Russians have had some failures with the successor to their tank. We are not talking about a new model of the Leopard or the Leclerc. We are developing armored objects for a completely new battlefield: not just classic fire, but also next-generation fire, electronic warfare and Artificial Intelligence, as well as laser and beam weapons.
With the Leopard 2A8, Germany is building a modern tank. What technical advantage can the Franco-German tank project provide, apart from the political intentions?
Lecornu: This is groundbreaking military equipment. We are not simply developing the tank of the future, but the future of the tank that we want to imagine together. We started from the operational needs of the Bundeswehr and the French army, whereas our predecessors sometimes started more from the needs of industry. That is a risky bet. But it corresponds to the feedback from Ukraine. The weapons we give Ukraine don't always work well together. The future tank will also make it possible to be fully interoperable. This will set standards for future armored cavalry.
Pistorius: I remember our meeting in Giverny, Sébastien's home town, where we visited Monet's house. At that meeting, we changed our perspective. Up to that point, the focus of our „main ground combat system“ (MGCS) negotiations had been on the companies in our two countries. We changed that. From then on, the German and French governments were to act as clients, and their governments were to define and place orders with the arms industry. From then on, we based everything on this new principle. To put it simply, we are not interested in developing a Leopard 3 or a Leclerc 2.0, but something completely new: we are jointly developing a system of the future that is geared towards what we need – from Artificial Intelligence and state-of-the-art sensor technology to the possibility of using the system unmanned in certain situations. That's why it will take several years to develop the MGCS. There will be worlds between what is and what is to come. Until then, we will of course modernize the existing main battle tanks.“
👉https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/pistorius-and-lecornu-this-is-groundbreaking-military-equipment-19675760.html