Sweden: Siltanews – News Desk
Germany has signed agreements with Italy, Spain and Sweden to develop a successor to the Leopard 2 tank, German business daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.
If confirmed, the deal would likely worry France, which in 2017 agreed with Berlin to develop a joint Franco-German tank to succeed Germany’s Leopard 2 and France’s Leclerc in a project beset by delays and disputes.
The initiative will be led by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and Rheinmetall, the German arms maker that builds the Leopard 2, Handel blatt reported, citing unnamed industry and political sources.
The German defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Delays in the proposed Franco-German project have strained ties already “tested” by differences on energy topics and the question of to what extent Europe should become independent from the US in its security policy.
However, the defense ministers of France and Germany said in July that they sought to give the initiative a new impetus and had tasked their army chiefs with drawing up rough outlines of the new tank’s capabilities, in order to have a document basis almost until the end of the year.