BERLIN -- Germany signed a leasing contract with Israel on June 14 for the use of five Heron TP unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) plus associated services. The contract had been delayed since 2015, when the Bundeswehr down-selected the platform to meet its interim medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) UAV requirement over the MQ-9 offered up by General Atomics.
That protest, lodged with the German cartel office in June 2016, was ultimately rejected two months later. But it took until June 13, 2018, for the German parliament's budgetary committee to approve the lease.
The Heron TP fleet will serve as an interim capability until around 2027, when a new pan-European combat drone - the European MALE Remotely Piloted Aircraft System, or EuroMALE - comes into service. This UAV concept is being undertaken in coordination by France, Germany, Italy, and Spain under a May 2015 agreement). The Heron TP fleet will be flown by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) under Airbus Defense & Space management and will be equipped for reconnaissance missions.
More controversially for domestic political consumption, the German-leased Heron TPs are also capable of carrying weapons. The German public remains strongly opposed to the drone attacks conducted by the U.S. and other Berlin allies and the center-left Social Democrats only agreed to form a grand coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats after receiving a pledge that the drones would not be weaponized.
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