Larger national budgets can weaken the incentive for joint procurement

Will France and Germany ever agree on joint construction?

They have done so before, but larger budgets and national demands for industrial work can weaken the incentive to cooperate.

France and Germany have cooperated on earlier programmes, so joint construction remains possible. Larger national defence budgets can reduce the pressure to share costs because governments have more scope to fund domestic work. Joint procurement may look economical across the whole programme while becoming politically cumbersome over where jobs and contracts go. Those national demands can consume the efficiency that collaboration was meant to achieve.