French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu will host his German counterpart Boris Pistorius at an airbase in Evreux, western France, on Thursday, September 21. The two men are expected to discuss the restart of the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) tank project launched in 2017 by the two countries. Lecornu and Pistorius gave an interview to Le Monde during which they also outlined diverging views on defense matters that have been straining the relationship between Paris and Berlin recently.
Boris Pistorius: You're right; there are plans to develop a modern tank at a European level. But it's not a project launched by governments. It involves private companies in the weaponry industry.
We do not see this project as an alternative to the MGCS. Sébastien Lecornu and I are determined to pursue the MGCS project and lay the foundations for one of the most modern armored systems in the world. Our teams and ourselves regularly meet for this purpose and hold intense discussions. Our common idea is to consider the MGCS as an open project so that other European Union partners can join.
B. P.: The defense industry sets its objectives. However, the MGCS is a project of the French and German governments. So it's our two governments that set the pace. We decide together on the various stages of its realization. We will continue to work with the companies, and together, we will define the conditions for those participating in the project.
Sébastien Lecornu: It's up to the national governments to determine the specifications, as they will be the customers for their armed forces. With Boris Pistorius, we have made a pragmatic methodological choice, just as we did for the launch of the FCAS [Future Combat Air System], which aims at enabling a dialogue between our land armies to ensure that we do need the same tank. We're talking about a tank for the next 30, 40, or even 50 years.
With the MGCS, we're not just talking about a successor to the German Leopard or the French Leclerc but also about the definition of a new-generation weapons system with major technological disruptions. On Thursday, in Evreux, we will politically validate the operational requirements expressed by the staffs of our two armed forces. This will then enable us to define the "pillars" of responsibility for fires [tank armament], connectivity, etc.
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