The SCAF budget, estimated at between €80 and €100 billion, is reshuffling the French, German, and Spanish defense budgets until 2040.
Summary
The SCAF program (Future Air Combat System, or SCAF FCAS) has become the most expensive arms project ever envisaged by Europe. Cost estimates now range from €80 billion to over €100 billion over the entire duration of the program, according to French parliamentary reports, the specialist press, and several international analyses.
This amount does not only concern the fighter aircraft of the future (the NGF), but an entire “system of systems”: manned fighters, escort drones, combat cloud, engines, sensors, and new-generation weapons. The SCAF is jointly funded by France, Germany, and Spain, with an initial budget of around €8 billion approved for the demonstration phases until 2027, divided equally between the three countries.
In terms of defense budgets, this program represents between 1% and 3% of annual expenditure, depending on the country, but over a period of more than 20 years: it is a structural commitment, not just a one-off increase in funding. The SCAF is strategic for European industrial autonomy and the replacement of the Rafale, Eurofighter, and Spanish F/A-18, but it is undermined by Franco-German rivalries, governance disagreements, and competition from the Anglo-Italian-Japanese GCAP program. The question is no longer just “how much will it cost?”, but “is Europe politically ready to take on a €100 billion program over the long term?”
The SCAF program becomes a $100 billion project
The SCAF program has never had an official detailed cost estimate for its entire life cycle. For a long time, politicians spoke of a figure in the range of $50 to $80 billion, based on a French Senate report published in 2020. Since 2023, the specialist literature and the economic press have been talking more and more openly about a range of €80 to €100 billion, or even more, including series production, infrastructure, and mid-life upgrades.
This inflation in estimates is not surprising. The SCAF FCAS is not just an aircraft. It is a set of technological “pillars”:
- a new generation fighter (NGF) aircraft;
- “remote carriers,” accompanying drones of various sizes;
- a combat cloud to connect aircraft, drones, effectors, and C2 centers;
- a new engine;
- a package of sensors, electronic warfare, and stealth capabilities;
- appropriate weaponry, potentially including long-range and hypersonic missiles.
Each pillar involves several billion euros in R&D, prototyping, and industrialization. Added to this are “hidden” costs: adaptation of air bases, simulators, parts inventory, training, and heavy maintenance. Estimates of €80 billion often only take into account development and an initial production run. Projections of more than €100 billion include a larger fleet and a service life extending into the 2070s.
It should also be remembered that the SCAF is entering a competitive environment. The GCAP program, led by the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan, is also estimated to cost around €80 to €100 billion overall. If continental Europe wants to remain in the game of future fighter aircraft, it has no serious alternative: a program costing tens of billions over several decades is the price of entry. The real question is therefore not whether €80 or €100 billion is “too expensive,” but whether Europeans are willing to consistently fund this type of program, rather than scattering their budgets across a multitude of redundant national projects.
A SCAF budget broken down by phases and pillars
In budgetary terms, the SCAF budget can be read in successive layers. In the short term, the only amounts voted on and visible concern the definition and demonstration phases. An intergovernmental agreement signed in 2021 organized the financing of phase 1B (detailed design and R&T) and phase 2 (demonstrators), for a total amount of around €7 to €8 billion until 2027.
In detail, phase 1B is often cited as costing around €3 to €3.6 billion, financed equally by France, Germany, and Spain (i.e., approximately €1 to €1.2 billion each), while phase 2, focused on the NGF demonstrator and certain drones, is estimated at around €4 to €4.2 billion. These amounts cover the period 2021-2027, with a first demonstrator flight targeted for the end of the decade, although this schedule is already fragile.
Beyond that, we enter the realm of projections. Assuming a target fleet of 200 to 300 NGF aircraft for the three countries (replacing the Rafale, Eurofighter, and F/A-18), with a full unit cost of more than €200 million per aircraft (aircraft + amortized development + infrastructure), we already reach €40 to €60 billion for the manned fighter portion alone. Add to this a constellation of accompanying drones, potentially several hundred units costing several million euros each, a robust combat cloud, a new-generation engine, and suitable missiles, and the €80 billion mark is quickly exceeded.
The figures put forward of “more than €100 billion” are therefore not accounting science fiction, but a reasonable order of magnitude over the 30 to 40-year life of the system, especially in a context of inflation in labor and raw material costs. Politicians like to talk about phases costing 3 or 4 billion because these amounts are digestible on an annual basis. However, they avoid clearly quantifying what the cost of SCAF really represents over its entire lifetime, because the figure immediately provokes a reaction from the public.
Shared financing that weighs on national budgets
On paper, the distribution of the costs of the SCAF program between France, Germany, and Spain is simple: equal financing for the common phases, then sharing based on fleets and industrial returns. In reality, the budgetary burden is anything but symmetrical.
France will spend around €50.5 billion on defense in 2025, with a trajectory towards €64 billion in 2027, according to government announcements. Germany, for its part, plans to spend nearly €95 billion on defense in 2025 and more than €160 billion in 2029, including the special fund and the target of 3.5% of GDP by 2029. Finally, Spain is still content with a budget of around €17-20 billion, with a political target of 2% of GDP to be achieved at a rapid pace.
If we assume a SCAF budget of €100 billion over 30 years, divided roughly into three equal parts, each country would be committed to contributing €30 to €35 billion. This represents, on average, around €1 to €1.2 billion per year per country over three decades. For France, this is equivalent to around 2% of its current defense budget, but this share will be higher if other items explode (ammunition, aid to Ukraine, space, cyber). For Spain, it is structurally more burdensome: €1 billion per year on a budget that is currently less than €20 billion is a serious constraint.
Of course, one could argue that these amounts are partly “self-financed” by industrial spin-offs, potential exports, and the consolidation of the aerospace industry. This is partly true. But we must stop pretending: every euro put into the SCAF FCAS is not put into ground-to-air defense, MALE drones, missile defense, or ammunition stocks. The trade-offs will be tough, especially for Berlin and Madrid, which must simultaneously rebuild undersized armies and invest in naval capabilities.
The political risk is clear: if the SCAF continues to struggle industrially while costs rise, it will become the ideal “budgetary totem” for all those in Parliament looking for an easy target to denounce.
A strategic challenge for European defense autonomy
Despite these constraints, the SCAF program remains central to European strategic autonomy. Without it, France, Germany, and Spain would have only two options from 2040 onwards: to extend the Rafale, Eurofighter, and F/A-18 indefinitely at the risk of falling behind technologically, or to buy large numbers of American F-35s and accept increased dependence on Washington for critical components (software, electronic warfare, data links, heavy maintenance).
The fighter jet of the future envisaged by the SCAF is expected to offer several breakthroughs:
- increased and optimized stealth for modern ground-to-air defenses;
- native integration with swarms of accompanying drones;
- a European combat cloud, capable of operating without relying on American networks;
- advanced electronic warfare and cyber-resilience capabilities.
Politically, the challenge is twofold. On the one hand, to show that continental Europe is still capable of leading a major high-tech program without American supervision. On the other hand, to prevent the continent from fragmenting into several competing systems: SCAF on one side, GCAP on the other, with the F-35 in the background. Today, however, this is the scenario that is emerging: the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan are pushing their own fighter aircraft of the future, while many European countries are buying the F-35 to meet their immediate needs.
Let’s be frank: SCAF is as much a project of military sovereignty as it is a project of political prestige. Paris wants to preserve its ability to design a system capable of carrying airborne nuclear deterrence; Berlin wants a strong symbol of its “Zeitenwende” and its massive investments; Madrid is seeking a place at the table of the major defense industries. This accumulation of national agendas makes the project more difficult, but it also explains why, despite the tensions, no one has yet dared to officially stop the machine.
A SCAF project weakened by industrial rivalries
On the industrial front, the SCAF FCAS is anything but smooth sailing. Tensions between Dassault Aviation and Airbus Defence & Space over the governance of the NGF, intellectual property, and the distribution of tasks were publicly exposed in 2022, then again at the 2025 Paris Air Show.
More recently, several press articles and political statements have highlighted the Franco-German differences:
- Dassault wants strong leadership on the NGF and is demanding up to 80% of the workload on this pillar;
- Berlin refuses to finance what it perceives as a “French project with German money” and is threatening in the Bundestag to withdraw or place additional orders for Eurofighters instead;
- German officials are even raising the possibility of joining the GCAP if the SCAF gets bogged down.
These frictions are not insignificant in relation to the SCAF budget. Every month of delay on a major milestone automatically increases the bill: wage inflation, contract renegotiation, obsolescence of certain demonstrators. In a program where R&D costs run into tens of billions, every two or three-year delay can add several billion euros to the total cost.
Even more seriously, these disputes undermine the credibility of the project in the eyes of the public. When CEOs explain in the press that they “know how to build an aircraft on their own” if the program fails, the implicit message is clear: cooperation is a political choice, not a technical necessity. Under these conditions, it becomes difficult to explain to taxpayers why they should finance a $100 billion program with no guarantee of industrial consistency.
The risk is not only that of the SCAF’s failure. It is also that of a “cut-price” compromise: an NGF pushed back to 2050, reduced drones and combat cloud, and states that, in the meantime, fill their fleets with F-35s or reinforced Rafale F5s. In this scenario, the SCAF program would have been very expensive to deliver partial and delayed capabilities, while further fragmenting the European landscape.
A budgetary choice that commits Europe for thirty years
Seen from a distance, an SCAF budget of 80 or 100 billion may seem crazy. When viewed over decades and in the context of the reality of the threats, it is less extravagant than it seems. A structuring future fighter aircraft program, spanning 30 or 40 years, always ends up in this order of magnitude, whether it is in Europe, the United States, or Japan. The real difference lies elsewhere: in the clarity of objectives, industrial discipline, and the political capacity to take responsibility for choices in front of the public.
Today, the official discourse remains largely watered down. There is talk of “shared costs,” “industrial spin-offs,” and “sovereignty,” but there is hesitation to explicitly state that the SCAF will consume several billion euros per year of France, Germany, and Spain’s defense budget flexibility, even though ammunition, drones, ground-to-air systems, cyber systems, space systems, and support for Ukraine. Politicians are well aware that once launched, such a program becomes politically difficult to stop, even if it goes off course.
The fundamental question is therefore: is SCAF the best use of these 80 to 100 billion euros at the European level? There is a strategic answer that argues in favor of it: without the SCAF program, Europe is condemning itself to remaining a customer of American systems or to indefinitely prolonging aging platforms. And there is a more blunt answer: if Member States are unable to stabilize governance, control costs, and meet deadlines, this money would undoubtedly have been better spent on more immediately operational capabilities.
SCAF has become a full-scale test of Europe’s strategic maturity. If it is completed on time, with controlled costs and a real structuring effect for the industry, it will justify its SCAF budget in the tens of billions. If it gets bogged down in internal squabbles and gradual abandonment, it will remain a perfect example of the worst of Europe: announcing a fighter jet of the future, then spending tens of billions to never see it fly in sufficient numbers.
Sources:
– French Senate report “2040, the SCAF odyssey – The air combat system of the future,” 2020.
– Le Monde, “The fighter jet of the future, symbol of European divisions on defense,” June 24, 2025.
– Le Monde, opinion piece “The Franco-German fighter jet, an ambitious but overly political project,” October 28, 2025.
– Reuters, news reports on the cost of the FCAS (>€100 billion) and statements by Friedrich Merz, August 2025.
– Euronews, “What future for the fighter jet of the future? A flagship Franco-German project,” September 1, 2025.
– La Tribune, “Berlin, Madrid, and Paris invest more than €8 billion to finance the SCAF until 2027,” August 2021.
– Omnirole-Rafale.com, dossier “SCAF – Towards the signing of phases 1B and 2,” 2022.
– Euractiv, “Air defense: France and Germany at a standstill in the FCAS program,“ August 2025.
– WarWingsDaily, ”Disagreements between Dassault and Airbus over the SCAF project,” July 2025.
– Recent data on defense budgets in France, Germany, and Spain (Reuters, central banks, national governments, 2024-2025).
War Wings Daily is an independant magazine.