High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Airbus Chief Executive Officer, members of the European Parliament, permanent representatives and ambassadors, directors general and directors of the European institutions, bodies and services, representatives of trade unions and employers' organizations and other authorities, ladies and gentlemen. As General Director of New Economy International Forum, I'm very pleased to welcome you to this Forum Europa event, which is organized thanks to the essential contribution of five companies that demonstrate their strong commitment to Europe and its citizens every day: EAS, International Airlines Group, IIG, Indra, Solaria, and Telica. As many of you know, we started our activities in Brussels earlier this year under the motto 'Ideas to Strengthen the Union' in a conversation with the President of the European Parliament. Since then, we have continued to consolidate Forum Europa as a meeting point for the political, economic, and social spheres of the EU and its member states. And today we would like to continue exchanging ideas to strengthen the Union. For that, we have the honor of welcoming Mr. Guillaume Faury, Chief Executive Officer, who will be introduced by Mr. Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission. Thank you very much, Mr. Borrell. So without further ado, Mr. Borrell, the floor is yours.
Good morning. And do you speak French or English? English. It's a great pleasure for me to be here with you. Thank you for asking me to do the presentation of Guillaume Faury. Guillaume Faury is the typical example of the French elite. He was born in '68. Well, it doesn't mean that he was a member of the '68 generation. For us, '68 was the great French, the last great French Revolution. I said the last because they used to do many, and he was not part of the people who were looking... The same year '68, when I was leaving the school of Aeronautical Engineering in Madrid, I was leaving my school just when he was born and started a career that made of him also an aeronautical engineer. So I am very happy to share with you this training, which is not an easy training. I'm sure he started at the École Polytechnique, which is one of the best, the French mathematical branch, and Sciences Po. They are the two starts of the schools where the French elite is being trained. And I have always been very jealous of the capacity of the French state to produce highly trained officials, engineers, and civil servants. He is now the current Chief Executive Officer of the Aerospace Corporation Airbus, a very familiar name for everybody, and in particular for the Spaniards because there are a lot of factories of Airbus in Spain. And he also serves as Chairman of its civil aircraft division. As I said, he graduated from École Polytechnique and subsequently... After, I was going to the École de Toulouse, but that has nothing to do with the same school. Today, what a great improvement! Toulouse was still the capital of an agricultural country where the French state was putting a lot of efforts and money and political will to create a hub of high-level technology, and they managed. And today, Toulouse is no longer the capital of the agricultural south of France but is also one of the most important hubs of technological development in Europe. He has had an extraordinary, extraordinary career. He joined the procurement agency of the French Ministry of Defense. He graduated as a French test pilot and became a flight test engineer before becoming Deputy Manager in the helicopter department. So he put planes and helicopters, no, not only he was producing helicopters, but he was piloting helicopters. He was an aeronautical engineer who was really acting as a helicopter engineer and pilot. He joined Eurocopter, now Airbus Helicopters, in 1998. He worked there for 10 years. He was the Chief Engineer of the Airbus production, being responsible for the heavy helicopter flight test. He became Executive Vice President for Research and Development in 2010. He became Executive Vice President for Research and Development at Airbus. He changed the planes for cars a little bit because three years later he replaced Lutz Bertling as the Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Helicopters. After that, he replaced as Airbus Commercial Aircraft company from February 2008, and after he became, he went to the Airbus board of directors. They selected him to succeed Tom Enders as Airbus Chief Executive Officer since April 2019, more or less when I came to Brussels and started performing as High Representative.
It's certainly managing the Chief Executive Officer of one of the most important industrial firms that we Europeans have been able to create in the aerospace sector. I've been talking with him several times, meeting here and there, and asking him why we have been able to create Airbus, the civil Airbus, and not so much on the defense side. Yes, we produce helicopters, we produce planes, and fighters? Not fighters exactly, but helicopters. But we have not been able to create the Airbus for the defense as much as we have done on the civilian branch. The answer is clear: we haven't been able to do that because of fragmentation. And fragmentation comes mainly from the side of demand. What is fragmented is the demand. Each member state has its own demand, and they are competing with each other as if we were still in the times where member states were the enemies of the other. We are no longer in this situation, but we still have the thinking, the mindset that the neighbor may become an enemy, which, thank God, is something that hasn't happened for a long time. The enemy now is someone else. But we haven't overcome this fragmentation of the mind, this fragmentation of the structural dimension of the firms that produce warfare for the Earth, military capacity. Something very different in the US. In the US, the demand is not fragmented. There is a single one, the Pentagon, who is asking for warfare for the military. And we are not in this situation. What has to happen for that to happen? Well, joint procurement, to go together, putting demands all together in order for the industry to have someone who is in the long term and in great quantity a demander. That is fragmentation on the side of supply? Yes, there is, but the most important fragmentation comes from the side of demand. This is a political problem. You can tell me that there is not a Chief Executive Officer who can and should solve a political problem. Certainly not. But he knows more than anyone else how to overcome this fragmentation.
How can we overcome this fragmentation in order to make Airbus also an important, relevant actor on the defense industry or the aerospace dimension of our defense? And it is very important that we could do that because today, as I said, we have enemies. Yesterday, Kyiv was bombarded, heavily bombarded, the same thing that the day before. And this is not going to stop. On the contrary, the threat that Russia represents for us will be coming bigger and bigger. And the Europeans have to wake up. And one of the ways of waking up is creating more defense capabilities, and in particular on the field of air defense. Everybody's talking about it, everybody wants to build air defense capacity. We are not able to provide Ukraine with enough air defense capacity, and the electricity system of Ukraine is being destroyed because we are unable to provide them with enough air defense capacity. This is a fact. And this can be solved, but for it being solved, the Europeans have to engage much more on their defense capacities. The war in Ukraine was a wake-up call, certainly. But one thing is to wake up, and another thing is to stand up. It was a wake-up call, but we said, 'Okay, let's sleep a little bit more, let's sleep a little bit more.' It's no longer the time to sleep a little bit more. On the contrary, we are already late. So we need people like you. We need people like you, people who have been working, engaging on the production, testing, research, development of one of the most important things that we Europeans don't have: we don't have enough air defense capacities. Airbus is 50 years old. The first Airbuses were already flying 50 years ago. It was not the same Airbus, but 50 years ago it was already Airbus. If the Europeans had not been able together to put together our capacities, overpassing the borders, today we would not be able to produce civil airplanes. It is the unity that has made us able to produce at this scale, big enough in order to compete with the US. Without this union, without building a firm that was transnational, we would be wiped out of the air defense, not air defense, the air industry. We would not be able to produce planes in Europe. It is our unity that has made us able to compete. We have been talking, and you remember that... Everybody recognizes it's a great, great success for the European industry. So can we do the same thing in other fields? Certainly we can. It's a matter of political will, and it's also a matter of having people able to implement the project. You have been able to implement the project, giving a strong support to this thing in which we Europeans can be proud of. So now you will explain us how to continue improving from your precious position of head of Airbus. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Borrell, for your introduction. Now I would like to welcome on stage Mr. Guillaume Faury, Chief Executive Officer. He will deliver a speech before the question and answer session.
Hello everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here. A lot of Spanish people in the room. When... I feel challenged and embarrassed. You don't hear me? Can you hear me better? Okay, I'm sorry. So I was saying I feel challenged and embarrassed on many fronts, dear Josep, by your introduction. First, it's indeed very embarrassing to be introduced by you. I should be introducing you very humbly. And there is so much that Europe owes you. You strengthened and led the EU foreign policy in a very turbulent global landscape. Not only did you manage crisis after crisis from COVID to Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, but you also had the courage to describe the world to Europeans as it is. I quote: 'We cannot deny the reality. A rising competition among big powers, high intensity conflicts between states, weaponization of economic interdependency, cyber warfare, and disinformation are part of our reality.' But there are other reasons why I feel challenged and embarrassed. It is not only to have you introducing me instead of the opposite, it's also because the way you structured your introduction is probably going to lead me to change my speech and do it in another way. First, indeed I benefited from the French elite education. I'm not sure it's very positive to put it this way, but indeed it's a high quality education in general, science, engineering, and then aerospace. And I'm a real aerospace guy. But today at 56, I feel like a true European with the experiences and the activities and businesses I have been involved in. So I stand here not as a product of the French elite, I hope, but really as a true European trying to serve Europe as best as I can. And that's why I will probably change a bit the course of my speech to sort of give a follow up to the very relevant points that you rightly made, Josep, during your introduction. Indeed, there would be no Airbus today if we still had a Spanish aircraft manufacturer, a British aircraft manufacturer, a German aircraft manufacturer, and a French aircraft manufacturer like we had 50 years ago. If we would still be in that constellation, there would be no European aircraft manufacturer. 50 years ago, indeed we had Lockheed, we had McDonnell Douglas, and we had Boeing as the big players in the world having almost 100% of market share on this growing business. The business has grown, doubling every 15 years. And there was a point where European visionary leadership, people from the political leadership, industrial people, engineers came together and said, 'Well, we need to do something that can work.' And the reason why it's working today is because we are at the right scale in businesses where scale matters. If you remain small and fragmented, you just can't make it. It's a matter of mathematics. The size of investment to amortize on a small number of products, there's a point where it cannot be competitive. So in commercial aviation, what the Airbus we know today, when we say Airbus, refers to this European vision at that time that has worked quite well.
We are at a turning point, and I will come back to it later. But that is one of the reasons of success. And you made a point on defense and space. Actually, that's today one of my biggest frustrations: that we have not been capable to create the conditions for success when it comes to scale. Indeed, I'd like to refer to the Draghi report. There's little new honestly in the Draghi report except that we have everything in one document, and we can't deny all those realities being put together. And we're facing that reality in a bit of a brutal way. It is a call for action. In this report, the figures I'm going to use are maybe slightly different from the ones of Mario Draghi, but what we see in defense at the moment, where defense is so important because our security is challenged, and I think you said and I completely agree with this: there is no freedom without security, there is no prosperity without security, there is no security without defense. And in today's world, there is no decarbonization without prosperity because the decarbonization journey is a very expensive one. So if we look at it in a sequence: without defense, no security; without security, no prosperity; without prosperity, no decarbonization, no climate change protection, or no transition. So that's a broad equation. And we've taken security for granted for too long. We have to face a reality that it's no longer the case. I think everybody agrees on this. But when you look at defense, that is the enabler for security, freedom, and prosperity. The Americans, with a similar size of economies between Europe and the US, similar size of population, the US is spending five times more to procure military equipment than the EU countries, roughly five times more. So we buy 20% in terms of defense equipment compared to what the Americans are buying. Maybe a ratio one to two could justify the difference of political vision of the world. Maybe the US wants to dominate where we want to be with some independency, with some sovereignty. We maybe don't have the same objectives. But 20% of what the US is spending, and on top, when you look at this 20%, the US is buying mostly from the US. So if you look at what the US buys from the US, we Europeans buy 20%. More than half of it we procure outside of Europe. And the less than half, meaning less than 10% that we procure from Europe, is super fragmented. We don't have the scale on this 10% because each and every country is in charge of its own defense and security, has its own defense procurement agent, and is serving its own need because it has its own armed forces. So we're completely subscale in Europe. And indeed, there's no way forward in defense today without consolidation of demand and consolidation of supply. But consolidation of supply cannot take place if there's no consolidation of demand. Is it impossible? It's not. Actually, when we look at missiles, 20 years ago in Europe we were on the... I mean, close to disappearing. We were subscale, company by company. And several countries of Europe, three companies decided to put their assets together to create common programs, created MBDA, whose shareholders are BAE Systems, Airbus, and Leonardo, so quite across Europe. And today, MBDA is one of the very few world leaders in missiles. That can be done. I think to a large extent, what we have done at Airbus with helicopters, that is now a German, French, Spanish, and more company in Europe, very strong outside of Europe, is the world leader in helicopters by far, world leader in the civil market with more than 50% of market share in a very fragmented global market. That can work as well. But we have not managed to do the same for the vast majority of our defense goods. And space is probably in an even worse position. Space is absolutely strategic for Europe. It provides secure navigation systems, it provides Earth observation, it provides science, it provides telecommunication, including military, what we call MILCOM, military satellite communications, that is a way to be secure, to be protected. And we're fragmented. We're fragmented. And the role of Europe is to maximize competition in Europe. So the thinking that we still have in Europe is to maximize the competition between European states. But when we are in industries where scale matters, it's the recipe for failure, it's a recipe for catastrophe. So a bit like what we've been doing 20 years ago on missiles, I think it's really time for us, probably with the UK that is on the same soil, it's time in my perspective to have a UK-EU partnership in security and defense. It's time to look at the main components of our security, having the main governments of European countries, can be more than a few, it can be a majority of the countries. I don't know what is the right way of doing things from a political standpoint, but to sit together and redefine what we think we need to do on the sectors which are the equipment and the systems which are at the core of what we need for our own security and sovereignty moving forward, and consolidate demand, enabling the consolidation of supply, and create companies and projects and programs at scale that give us the potential to be strong, competitive for the future. And it's still time because we have the technologies in most of the cases, but we don't have the scale. And we see that our so-called strategic competitors when it comes to aerospace and defense, which is the sector I know, are Americans, Chinese, but we see also the Indians coming. The Chinese are already very strong in space and they have ambitions in aviation. So if we want more Airbuses in the sense of projects at scale that can perform, and I really believe we need this in defense and space, this is time for action. We have everything we need in terms of evidence that the way we're working today is subscale, will not lead us to success, that sovereignty of defense and security is an essential part of our prosperity, of our freedom for the future, and it is time to change the way we're working in Europe.
I am absolutely convinced that if we don't do this now, it will not just be the slow agony of decline. I think as Mario put it in his report, it will be the slow agony of decline that is going to the fast agony of decline. And we already see in Europe some sectors which are facing this acceleration because you are less and less competitive till the point you are suddenly no longer competitive. I think we have another issue to manage that is not specific to Airbus or to our industries: the loss of competitiveness of Europe. We really need to put competitiveness back at the center, front and center of what we're doing. I think we've been obsessed with other priorities and we have taken competitiveness for granted. It's no longer the case. I'm really worried about the European conditions for doing business. We've put too much priority on regulating across the board every new thing that is popping up, including important ones, and especially decarbonization. But we have to combine new technologies, decarbonization being one of them, and competitiveness. Because if we are at scale but not competitive for other reasons, it doesn't work. The airlines of the world won't buy a product that is not competitive, period. So we have another priority to manage. I was speaking about defense and space, finding the right scale, consolidation of demand and supply. It's late, but it's probably still time to do it. In aviation, we are in a different place. We have become the world leader in commercial aviation. I think we can be proud of this success as Europeans. It was far from a given when that was started 50 years ago. It was very adventurous and ambitious at that time. So we are with a front foot forward when it comes to decarbonization. But we need to keep doing the right things because we are in the fourth revolution of aviation, that is the carbon transition. And would we not do the right things, we could end up being decarbonized but not competitive anymore. And the best decarbonized airplane that no airline is buying around the world has no contribution to decarbonization. So we are on that trajectory. There's good cooperation between European countries when it comes to aviation and decarbonization of aviation. It is at the center of the priorities of many European countries. It has been supported in Fit for 55. We want to be part of the Green Industrial Deal that is about to come. I think that's really strategic to make that step forward because we are in the pole position, but you can lose the race being in the pole position if you don't have the right car or the right preparation or the right conditions for success. I think there's a very good quality of dialogue. I'm very happy to be here on a regular basis, and my team as well, to engage and make sure that we keep having the right conditions for success to be successful in decarbonization. Because Europe wants to lead in decarbonization. At Airbus, we are absolutely convinced that aviation is just at the beginning of its history. Sorry, if we decarbonize but we would not be capable of decarbonizing, we could end up in a very different place. So that's the challenge we have ahead of us.
Aviation is actually more of a North Atlantic ecosystem today. Obviously, we've been competing between Americans and Europeans, but today the supply chains are very intertwined. At Airbus, we buy $15 billion a year from our American friends. We sell a lot in the US. Our manufacturing base is mainly Europe, but we have now today a lot of factories and assembly lines also in the US. And we have created a sort of territory for competition that is very healthy. That is what I call a North Atlantic ecosystem. And we have to be very mindful and prudent of maintaining that relationship with the US in difficult political times. And that's probably also something we could do better on the defense and space side. It's not about us against Europe or Europe against us. We're competing with each other, but we're also cooperating to a very large extent. And NATO is very important in the times we're in today. So I will cut short because I think it's all about Q&A and the opportunity to have exchange with the room. I don't want to be too long. That's completely different from what I had prepared, but I will maybe try to come back to my conclusion that was about closing with the Mario Draghi report. It is a call for action for Europe. Defense, space, and aerospace and aviation are in my view not optional. They are essential pillars of Europe's future for connectivity, mobility, security, as we discussed earlier. And only bold, coordinated actions from governments, institutions, and industry will be the key to success. Josep, as you leave your role, Europe owes you a lot of gratitude. I mean it sincerely for your steadfast leadership in connecting security with liberty and defense with industrial capabilities. As you said, keep in mind that the European Union is not just an economic union, it's a political union. It has political responsibilities also in the field of defense as part of NATO, but with our own capacity, with our own will. Without it, we will not be able to face the challenge of the world. And I can't agree more. And I think NATO will be stronger if we have a strong defense in Europe. So it's not about Europe or NATO, it's obviously Europe and NATO. It's now up to all of us to take up this responsibility. A lot of new situations in Europe, especially here in Brussels, with a new leadership by building on the foundation of collaboration, investment, and innovation. We can ensure that Europe not only meets today's challenges but secures its role as a global leader in the decades ahead. On behalf of Airbus and the wider aerospace, space, and defense community, I wish everybody here every success in your future endeavors. There are plenty of challenges. Airbus likes to work with all of you to secure Europe's leadership in innovation, sustainability, and global competitiveness for generations to come, in and outside of Europe. Thank you. And as I said, I'm now looking forward to your questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Faury. Now, as in previous events, the Q&A session will be moderated by journalist Chris Burns. Thank you very much. And after the Q&A session, you will have a few minutes for closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you very much, Diego.
Very interesting. And also to muchas, many questions that flow through my head. We already have some here. Can I ask you about a little story? Maybe you can start with that. I know as a flight test engineer you were flight test engineer for Eurocopter at the time, and then later it became Airbus Helicopters. In that sector, there's something about the Tiger helicopter story to tell about cooperation. I think there was kind of a funny story to tell there. Can you start with that?
I can start with the one I think you're referring to. It takes a few minutes and it's about trust and collaboration as key enablers of success in Europe. The Tiger helicopter, I think most of you must be familiar with it, is an attack helicopter that was launched in 1987 as a program of cooperation between France and Germany at that time, and between what was Aerospatiale division helicopter in France and MBB in Germany. And this program had two languages: it was French and German. Everything was translated in both French and German. That was the rule at that time. Bye-bye, Joseph, thanks a lot. I think we can applaud. So everything was in French and German. And there's been an in-flight incident on the first prototype that was at that time based in Marignane, south of France, where an engine cowling was about to depart from the helicopter in flight, go in the water, and could potentially have created a catastrophic situation. So the attachment of the cowling was changed, and actually the issue was about a screw when the thread of the screw was damaged. So in French, the screw thread is called 'le pas de vis'. So the translation from French to German actually went through English. So I will tell you the end of the story afterwards because it's the funny part. So this part had to be modified, and of course the modification had to be applied on the prototype in Germany. The mechanic that was in charge of implementing that modification on the second prototype thought that the modification was making no sense and thought, 'Those bloody French, they don't understand what they do. It's completely stupid, it's going to be even worse than what it was before.' So he gave a phone call to a guy he knew in France he had been working with and said, 'Well, that modification is crap.' The guy said, 'No, no, it's a good modification.' 'But no, they want me to do this.' And the guy in France said, 'But that's not the modification we're doing. You don't understand.' He said, 'Well, I understand this is in Dutch? It's in German, it's very clear, and it says to do this.' And the guy said, 'No, no, that cannot be the case. It's wrong. Don't do that modification.' So what happened? What happened is that 'le pas de vis endommagé' (damaged screw thread) translated from French to English meant 'no damage crew'. And then the guy that had to translate from English to German could not understand what was meant, so he made something else out of it. And that led to that was one of the reasons. So we could have had a safety issue very serious on the German helicopter had the German mechanic applied the modification. So that's when we decided in the program to move from two languages to only one language, that was English, neither German nor French, English language of aerospace. And trust comes from common language, trust understanding comes from sharing things in common. And indeed I like this story because it's a story of aerospace, it's a story of helicopters, but it's also a story of collaboration. The German mechanic that gave the call to the friend in Marignane because he had spent six months in Marignane working together made the difference. So it comes down to trust and collaboration.
To people, then it comes to people, it comes to collaboration, it comes to knowing each other, it comes from traveling, connectivity. Mobility is not just the pleasure of taking a plane; it is creating those conditions for knowing each other, working together, looking at things where we are. And that's what we're doing in Europe. So can you mention one lesson that you've learned as far as trying to get up to scale and consolidate the European space and defense industries? Because you are leader of the European space and defense industries of late. How, what lesson did you learn that maybe we could apply?
Maybe I'll take that one. Do you know what's the difference between a team and a group of people? Well, there is. Right, well, a team is a group of people who have a common goal or common goals. In a company, if you are a group of people with different dreams and different objectives and different goals, you don't get anywhere. As a European company, we need to make sure that we have people on board that share the same dreams and the same goals, not trying to defend different territories or different views. So I think one of the success factors of Airbus is really to have a leadership team and a workforce that is really mobilized by the objectives of the company, not trying to be national or doing internal battles, maximizing competition between countries or between players, which we see as the rule of Europe. The rule of Europe when it comes to business is to maximize competition between players. If you do this inside a company like Airbus, you forget that the competition is with other big players outside of Europe. You're taking the company down. If you share the same objectives, one of our strong objectives today is decarbonization for instance, then you have a winning team.
As you said in your talk, you need demand for there to be supply. I mean, they're joined at the hip. I have a question here from the audience. Do you think there should be a buy European obligation in defense procurement in the EU? That's a big issue of debate right now.
Well, if we look at the US, there's a buy US. If we look at China, even if it's probably not in the law, they buy as much as they can from the Chinese industry. Why? Because there is a sense that you cannot be sovereign in your defense if your weapons come from abroad. Well, when they come from friends, that's probably more secure, but if your friend has reasons to focus on another priority or comes to a different decision, then you're extremely vulnerable. So there must be, in a way or the other, in my perspective, forces that lead us to buy more from Europe when it comes to defense and security goods. Now, what would be the form of a buy EU act? I don't know, but I think it's extremely important that there is a broader consensus on reinforcing what we call the European technical and industrial defense base. I think it's extremely important.
Next question. What three things could EU governments, not necessarily the EU, do to boost the defense industry in the next five years?
José said it: consolidate demand, consolidate demand, consolidate demand. So it's really cooperation at the top and then creating the conditions for consolidation at the bottom to create companies that have the scale to be competitive on the world stage.
How do we tackle security and competitiveness challenges with decarbonization objectives? How do we reconcile that?
That's probably, with a priority that Europe has put on decarbonization in my view rightly so, that's probably the most challenging question we will have to answer. How do we combine, much better combine, decarbonization objectives with a priority to be, to remain, not sure, to become competitive in those technologies? How is Airbus doing it? Well, there's not a unique answer to this. Let me take one example. Decarbonization is our second priority; safety is the first one. It's a day-to-day priority. We have 2.5 billion people that will fly on Airbus this year. We have 400 to 500,000 people on an Airbus as we speak today. There's an Airbus taking off and landing every second. So my first priority is very basic: it's safety, safety, safety. The second one, and it's a more long-term strategy priority, it's decarbonization, because there will be no long-term future for aviation if it's not decarbonized. If we look at the main levels to decarbonize, we have planes and fuels. We need planes that burn less fuel and fuels that put less carbon in the air when we use them. A plane that is burning less fuel is both more ecological and more competitive. So it's fully aligned. Competitiveness and decarbonization are fully aligned here. It's quite easy. We work hard to bring products which are burning less fuel, and by the way, that's what we're doing. And we have a backlog of 8,700 planes to deliver because airlines want those planes. The problem for the fuel is a different one. Economy and ecology are disaligned. A decarbonized fuel, a sustainable aviation fuel, is significantly more expensive than jet fuel. So that's a much more complex equation. The way Europe has decided to move forward is with mandates, and we at Airbus have supported the idea of mandates. We think that's the right way forward at least for the beginning. But the issue is it's absolutely disaligned in the world the way to do things, and even the definition of stuff is not the same. If you look at Europe, US, ICAO, China, Singapore, you take off from Amsterdam, you put SAF, it is recognized as SAF. You land in Singapore, you refuel with SAF, you come back to Amsterdam, and they tell you, 'Oh no, no, no, the SAF you have taken in Singapore, an expensive one, cannot qualify as SAF here in Europe.' So what do you do next? Well, you don't take SAF in Singapore. So it's absolutely essential that we find a way for areas where there is disalignment between economy and ecology to create a level playing field. That's what we did with safety at ICAO just after World War II. There was a global level playing field, quite low at the beginning, that was created. Everybody had to buy in, and then we raised the bar to the point that we are the safest way of traveling on the planet today, in spite of flying 10,000 meters high, 1,000 kilometers per hour, minus 50 degrees outside. Because we had a level playing field and we increased the level of expectation over time. In decarbonization, at least for aviation, that is a global game. We need a global level playing field for decarbonization. We don't have it today, and therefore we're quite slow. So it's good to be thinking we're perfect in Europe or we're the best, but in fields where the game is a global game, it's more important to have a global agreement than to have a perfect agreement region by region.
What's the likelihood of that though?
It's very difficult. I think it's not unlikely because I'm speaking to US leaders, to leaders in Europe, to leaders in China. Decarbonizing is a common objective. I think it's a sincere objective of all the large countries or group of countries of the world. They have tried sincerely to do their best to start with something, and they realize today that it's really important to come closer together. So I think we have plenty of reasons for conflicts around the world, but the objectives to decarbonize, at least for the regions I mentioned before, are sincere, and there is a willingness to cooperate to find something that works better. But we need flexibility, we need agility, we need to accept the idea that what we have done has to be reworked and maybe reworked again and reworked again until it works.
A hardcore business question. Your main competitor being Boeing. Yesterday in an FT Financial Times article, it was said that Airbus is struggling to capitalize on the difficulties of Boeing. What can the EU do about that?
I'm not sure capitalizing on the difficulties of Boeing is what I would consider our strategic objectives. We want to be competitive, we want to serve our customers, we want to move forward in aviation, decarbonization, digitalization. So we have plenty of objectives that we're trying to achieve, and there are a number of dimensions where we are making good progress. So I would not complain about our situation. I think the comment comes from capitalizing in terms of deliveries and market share. In deliveries, actually, we have a supply chain that has not recovered from COVID, or that is progressively recovering. And indeed, we have more demand than the capability to supply. So the very strong demand that is coming to us, in particular because of the difficulties of Boeing, is something we cannot serve. So that's probably what the FT refers to. But we're moving forward, we're progressing, we're ramping up, not as fast as we would like to, and we're supporting the supply chain heavily, sometimes by buying part of the supply chain as we do with Spirit to try to solve the problems, to make sure we can capitalize. Now, it's a long-term game, and the jury is out on what's going to happen in the next five or ten years. So I don't give up, especially with the new US president.
Can I ask you the T-word and we put that to bed right? Because there is lots of talk about tariffs. What will Mr. Trump do, especially in the airline, in the aerospace sector? How worried are you about that and competing with Boeing?
First, there are changes of governments everywhere at the moment, and some governments are very short-lived. So we are used to adapting and engaging and explaining what we do, how we do it, listening to concerns and objectives of new governments. So from that perspective, it's not very different from many other situations I have seen recently in Europe. Obviously, the US is very important for us; it's an important market. But I think we've managed to explain, with a previous tariff situation, quite in depth in the US, the way we are supporting the US industry. Airbus buys $15 billion US dollars of goods from the US every year. We're assembling planes in the US. Actually, the fourth biggest production site of commercial airplanes in the world is Airbus in Alabama. That was not the case ten years ago because we were not producing planes. So I think it can come, who knows, probably not in the form of what we had in the first place when we had this dispute between Europe and the US on WTO fronts. I think that's behind us. I know there are a lot of American stakeholders advocating for no tariffs in what I call the North Atlantic ecosystem. So if it comes, we will adapt. It's not an existential threat to us. But I think it would be doing more damage in the US probably than to Europe. So I don't think it's very likely that it comes, at least in the form that we've seen previously.
Okay, let's look in another direction. There's an MEP from Poland says, 'I would like to ask about your plans to develop in Central and Eastern Europe. Isn't it time for Airbus to expand in Central Europe as well? How and where?'
The answer is obviously yes, especially if it comes from a Polish MP. Okay, thank you for the question. You know, I spend a lot of my time, less than a decade ago, and at that time we were speaking about Poland becoming the fifth pillar of Airbus. So it shows how serious we were about growing in Poland, and there was a lighthouse project that was the C-295 that was being used as this move to Poland. We know, in my view, the unfortunate outcome of this, but it's never too late. So I was in Poland last week, in Warsaw, we're speaking again on how to have projects together, how to support LOT in its development, how to cooperate in the field of defense and space. And I think there's plenty of opportunities. And indeed, we not only want to sell our products to Poland, but we think it would be a much better Europe, a much stronger Europe in the field of defense and space, if Poland, Italy, and probably other countries like the Netherlands would have more stake in Airbus and would contribute to being not just perceived as German, French, Spanish, and British, but also being much stronger in other countries of Europe. Because it's better if everybody feels having skin in the game of this European project that we believe we're capable of moving forward. So it's not just for Poland, but indeed that's really what we would like to achieve. It's quite high on my list of priorities, and I think it's a prerequisite of what we called earlier with Josep: creating the consolidation of the demand.
