Berlin/ParisReuters —
The leaders of Germany and France have agreed to scrap a landmark project to develop and build a new-generation fighter jet, officials said on Monday, bowing to industrial rivalries over Europe’s most ambitious defense program.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the troubled project on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans summit in Montenegro last week and concluded that there was no prospect of breaking months of deadlock between arms firms involved in the plan, German officials said.
Merz has therefore advised Macron not to pursue the construction of a joint fighter aircraft any…