Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders urged Germany to press ahead with plans to create common European regulations on arms exports, saying the issue posed a litmus test for Berlin’s ambitions to foster a European defence policy. <\/p>\n
By showing “a kind of moral super elevation” on arms exports, Germany was frustrating Britain, France and Spain, Enders told Reuters, adding that without a common European approach Airbus could consider manufacturing German-free products.<\/p>\n
German restrictions on arms exports to non-EU or NATO countries have been a thorn in bilateral co-operation for years because of the historical objections of the Social Democrats, junior partners in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition.<\/p>\n
Berlin can stop exports of arms that include parts made in Germany under existing arrangements. <\/p>\n
“Yes, the French and Germans are apparently talking about it and trying to find a new regulation … But at the moment there are no results,” Enders told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
“It has been driving us crazy at Airbus for years that when there is even just a tiny German part involved in, for example, helicopters the German side gives itself the right to, for example, block the sale of a French helicopter,” he added.<\/p>\n
Much to France’s irritation, Germany decided unilaterally last October – following the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul – to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, its second largest market in the world after Algeria.<\/p>\n
That decision has blocked the export licence for the sale of the Meteor long-range air-to-air missile, which is supposed to equip the Saudi Air Force Eurofigher Typhoon.<\/p>\n
The Meteor is assembled by European leader MBDA, a subsidiary of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo, while its propulsion system and its warheads are manufactured in Germany.<\/p>\n
A future warplane system launched this week by Paris and Berlin and a plan for a tank of the future could also be compromised if Berlin does not adapt its policies, French diplomatic and military sources warned.<\/p>\n
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen called on Thursday for a common European arms export policy, telling the Munich Security Conference:<\/p>\n
“We Germans should not pretend that we are more moral than France or more politically far-sighted than Great Britain in terms of human rights policy.”<\/p>\n
A French government official said on Friday that the two countries had exchanged letters on the subject as was normal procedure, but that work was still ongoing. <\/p>\n
“On the fundamentals on both sides we’ve expressed our desire to resolve this problem. The work is still ahead of us,” the French official said. <\/p>\n
Enders said Germany needed to secure common arms regulations if it wanted to push ahead with plans for a European defence policy.<\/p>\n
“It is to some degree a litmus test as to how serious the Germans are about common defence and close Franco-German cooperation,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders urged Germany to press ahead with plans to create common European regulations on arms exports, saying the issue posed a litmus test for Berlin’s ambitions to foster a European defence policy. By showing “a kind of moral super elevation” on arms exports, Germany was frustrating Britain, France and Spain, Enders told Reuters, adding that without a common European approach Airbus could consider manufacturing German-free products. German restrictions on arms exports to non-EU or NATO countries have been a thorn in bilateral co-operation for years because of the historical objections of the Social Democrats, junior partners […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-aviation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}