Josselin Droff and Julien Malizard publish the article «The price of aeronautical sovereignty in Europe: an economic approach» in the special issue n°11 of the Revue Défense Nationale (RDN) published to coincide with the 2023 Paris Air Show.
Josselin Droff and Julien Malizard's analysis shows that :
- Choices for the acquisition of aeronautical equipment are at the crossroads of technological, economic and industrial issues. European countries now find themselves caught in a vice of budget constraints strong, a industrial fragmentation and a strong growth in aircraft costs.
- The countries of Europe find themselves at the centre of a «trilemma» making it impossible to simultaneously achieve significant economic benefits, the greatest strategic autonomy and a relatively low acquisition cost.
The authors examine the different acquisition strategies in the light of this trilemma. For future-generation aircraft, the preferred strategy is therefore cooperation within the framework of major aeronautical programmes such as the Future Air Combat System (SCAF) or its competitor, the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).
This strategy offers hope, particularly if the economies of scale and learning are effective, but there are also concerns about the sharing of industrial tasks and the intellectual property of the technologies used.
However, in relation to the trilemma, comparison with other acquisition strategies indicates that cooperation can work as long as the relative loss of sovereignty and economic spin-offs is offset sufficiently high unit purchasing costs.
For future programmes, two success factors are identified: the application of best athlete« criteria», to guarantee industrial efficiency, and the’identification of a credible business model between domestic orders and export contracts, ensuring the long-term viability of the aerospace companies concerned thanks to a sufficiently high volume of production.
