UNTERLUESS, Germany (Reuters) -The Franco-German MGCS main battle tank project, which has stalled for years, is speeding up and has political will on both sides, Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger said on Thursday.
“This is what politicians want, but also industry,” he told reporters during a factory visit in Unterluess, in northern Germany, which was attended by the French and German defence ministers.
Berlin and Paris in 2017 agreed to work on a Franco-German tank to succeed the German Leopard 2 and the French Leclerc, but the project had been hit with disagreements and delays.
Efforts to speed up production come at a time when Europe is ramping up defence production, feeling more vulnerable after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and questions over the U.S. commitment to the NATO military alliance.
A production concept will be developed over the next few months together with the French company Thales and KNDS.
“Then we will move into a prototype phase, and after this prototype phase, we will hopefully move relatively quickly into a production phase,” Papperger said.
(Reporting by Stephan Schepers, Martin Schlicht, Markus Wacket and Matthias Williams, editing by Thomas Seythal)
