By Tim Hepher
PARIS (Reuters) – The former head of Airbus has urged Europe to shift attention for now from major arms projects to nimble new technologies like robotic drones to demonstrate to Moscow and Washington that it can make a difference to its security by the end of the decade.
Former CEO Tom Enders, who led Europe’s top aerospace group through some of its biggest funding battles, said planned new warplanes would play a key role in coming decades but that the immediate lessons from Ukraine required greater agility.
“We are told…that there is maybe a window of three to five years before Putin might test (NATO) Article 5 in the Baltic States or elsewhere. So we have a certain time pressure,” Enders told Reuters in a rare interview since leaving Airbus in 2019.
“We want to deter the enemy but what can we do to strengthen that in three to five years? It is certainly not by the FCAS (fighter) programme, not by developing a new Franco-German tank. That all comes too late. We need to reactivate or increase existing production lines and we need to introduce these new intelligent systems as the Ukraine war has been teaching us.”
He added: “First and foremost, we need to really maximize the value of robots on the battlefield, particularly drones.”
The Future Combat Air System (FCAS), also known by its French abbreviation SCAF, is an effort by France, Germany and Spain to replace Rafale and Eurofighter jets in the 2040s, with Airbus and Dassault Aviation heading the work.
The war in Ukraine has been characterised by unprecedented deployments of thousands of drones, helping Kyiv to temper the numerical advantage of Russian forces that invaded in 2022 and giving a sharp boost to the country’s own defence industry.
“It’s happening right now…on the Ukrainian battlefield. You can leapfrog these old systems if you focus on autonomous systems, robots, sensors and particularly drones,” Enders said.
EAST AND WEST
Enders, who heads the German Council on Foreign Relations and is widely seen as a prominent Atlanticist in business, said the rift between Europe and Washington was the most serious since NATO was born in 1949 and should be a final wake-up call.
“The U.S. voting with China and Russia against its long-term allies in the UN Security Council: what else does it take?”
He said Europe had been wrong to consider Donald Trump’s first presidency as an “aberration” in the long-standing transatlantic relationship, and that instead Joe Biden’s single term seemed the exception to a shift of focus away from Europe.
“Now we’re facing a world where we have opponents as Europeans on two fronts in the East and in the West, and God knows how to classify China in this,” Enders said.
Enders said the European defence industry would in future be a mix between the big platform makers and risk-taking newcomers.
His comments contrast with calls by some politicians to give more impetus to existing flagship projects like SCAF in response to the prospect that Washington will cancel security guarantees.
The former Airbus CEO, who is also a board member of German technology startup Helsing, has co-authored a white paper calling for an immediate push into cutting-edge technology like robotics, AI and hypersonics, to be developed within Europe.
Signatories to the 3-5 year view also include current Airbus Chairman Rene Obermann, taking part in a personal capacity.
Enders said more money was now flowing into defence from the private sector after years in which many of Europe’s banks and funds had shied away from defence for ethical investing reasons.
“Even big banks are now interested in investing in defence and that is necessary to speed up the effectiveness of our armed forces and our deterrence. I’m taking these three to five years very seriously. In this crazy world, anything can happen.”
(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
