Why the EU ‘super-plane’ is having some trouble getting off the ground

Date: 18/07/02

By David Cronin

Ambitious plans for the Airbus A400M, a military aircraft designed to enable troops to be swiftly deployed or evacuated, have flown into trouble.

THE hordes of plane-spotters flocking to this year's Farnborough International Air Show will get a glimpse of what could be the EU's key military aircraft of the future.

The aviation industry's showcase (22-28 July) will display the merits of the Airbus A400M with a full-size model of the plane's body.

The representatives of the French company who travel to England for the exhibition will doubtless be eager to display an air of confidence about their product. Yet this may not be enough to mask their nervousness over the distinct possibility that the ambitious project could nosedive.

An agreement for Airbus to build the A400M was reached five years ago by nine European countries - Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and the UK.

At the time, all accepted that such a plane was necessary to remedy critical shortcomings in the continent's defence capabilities. That was before the EU's inferiority to the US in combat situations was so visibly exposed during NATO's bombardment of Milosevic-era Serbia in 1999.

The key benefit the project is supposed to bring is strategic airlift - the ability to drop troops swiftly into a crisis zone or, alternatively, to extricate them from it.

But there was a strong political dimension to the project, too. Many of the architects of Europe's defence policy have argued in favour of bolstering the continent's defence industry. It is logical, they believe, that the hardware bought for European armies should bear a 'made in Europe' label.

Yet the initiative has had a few hiccups. The biggest was Rome's announcement last December that it was pulling out from the plan and opting to buy US-manufactured planes instead.

That shock was followed by suggestions that Berlin was wavering in its commitment. In March the German Bundestag's budget committee voted to allocate €5.1 billion to the project - about half the amount needed to buy the 73 A400M planes it had said it wanted. Decisions on whether further cash can be found will have to be taken after the country's general election on 22 September.

Germany is supposed to be the biggest contributor to the €18 billion project of the eight states still behind it, which are supposed to buy a combined total of 196 planes.

Last month another possible setback emerged. Reports suggested that the current Portuguese government is thinking about reneging on the pledges to A400M made by the previous administration.

'The project remains clouded in uncertainty due to contractual delays,' wrote Daniel Keohane from the Centre for European Reform think-tank in a recent issue of New Statesman.

'And the A400M is nothing more than a plywood model. There is consensus across Europe that new capabilities are needed but European states are struggling to come up with the goods.'

Andrew Brookes, from the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, described the recent German decisions on the project as one of 'fudges and fiddles'.

'The Bundestag hasn't stumped up the cash,' he added. 'They are committed to 73 airplanes but they are talking about maybe 40 at the moment.

'There has been no movement of any sort worth talking about. We are no nearer to metal being cut or an aeroplane seeing the light of day. We should be saying 'we are three years to first flight'. But we are still as far away from a first flight as ever.'

Yet is the A400M really the aircraft that will fulfil the EU's military needs?

Julian Lindley-French, senior research fellow with the EU Institute for Strategic Studies in Paris, says many of the Union's politicians consider him a heretic for suggesting it is not.

'But the military men by and large say I'm absolutely correct,' he claims.

The A400M project was initially proposed in the early 1980s. At that time the prospect that the EU could have a common defence structure was still remote. In 1982 the Western European Union alliance agreed on the scope of the operations it could assume.

Named the Petersberg tasks after the conference centre near Bonn where they were drawn up, these mainly cover humanitarian work, search and rescue missions, peace-keeping and peace-enforcement.

Various calamities throughout the globe since then have led to European troops serving in missions in such distant places as Rwanda, East Timor, Congo and, most recently, Afghanistan.

Lindley-French contends that the A400M may not be able to travel sufficiently long distances without refuelling to get forces into such far-away theatres quickly enough.

While describing the plane as 'impressive', he feels it pales somewhat in comparison to the Boeing-manufactured C17 aircraft, favoured by the US forces. The latter is jet-powered with four Pratt and Whitney engines, whereas the A400M is only turbo-powered.

The A400M is also smaller - 42.2 metres in length, compared to the C17's 53.04 metres. And it has less room for troops. An Airbus brochure says it could carry 120; Boeing says the C17 could take 246.

Lindley-French points out that the A400M has a 'very conservative design' for a plane that European armies are due to use for three decades. He argues it would be preferable to build a bigger aircraft with a greater lifting capacity, such as another model on which Airbus is working, the A380M.

'The A400M is a classic example of defence-industrial cooperation being placed before military requirements. The Italians were leaned on by the Americans [to abandon their commitment to the project] but I think what they did was a brave gesture - to say what money we have should go elsewhere.

'If squeezed, most British policy-makers would say they were probably right. But there was a whole politics behind A400M. The British didn't want to be seen to be bad Europeans again [by not signing up to the project].'

Given that it is some time before an A400M will speed down a runway en route to a trouble spot, NATO chief George Robertson feels contingency plans for the interim period need to be made now.

The Alliance's secretary-general has suggested that squadrons of C-17s could be pooled at NATO for use by European forces or that they could be leased to individual EU states. This possibility is expected to be discussed in the talks before and during NATO's Prague summit in November.

'You can't send a communiqué to a crisis,' Robertson said in April. 'You can only send a big plane with your troops inside.'

Major feature on the Airbus A400M military aircraft. Article is part of a European Voice survey on Aviation.