Royal Navy may share new carriers with France

Times Online ^ | 5/18/08 | Nicola Smith and Michael Smith

[Dawnsblood]

Two hundred years after the battle of Trafalgar, the navy could end up sharing the pride of its fleet with the French. Driven by spiralling budgets, the two navies began talks last week aimed at sharing their aircraft carriers.

The government is expected to give the go-ahead for the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers this week, part of a joint Anglo-French project to build a total of three.

The French, who currently have only one carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, are questioning whether they can afford a replacement and are keen to explore closer co-operation with Britain instead.

“We all have budget constraints and we are looking to see how we can rationalise and reinforce our resources and work together,” commented a French diplomat who is close to the talks.

Both countries are facing a £2 billion shortfall in their defence budgets and the cost of the new carriers at just under £2 billion each is proving a major burden.

The “bilateral carrier group interoperability initiative” was proposed by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, at his summit meeting with Gordon Brown in London in March.

French sources suggest it could result in either navy borrowing an aircraft carrier from the other if their own was unavailable as a result of a breakdown or refit.

[sukhoi-30mki]

The French and Brits have signed an industrial cooperation agreement on building their new carriers (2 for the UK-1 for FR).But the French have decided to postpone their decision to go ahead after 2010. Anyway, the carriers will only have limited commonality-the French ship will use conventional Rafale jets using steam catapults, while the Brit ships will have STOVL JSF variant.

This whole sharing business is for the “EU” fleet and is not a Brit-French thing .