“We want to return to a single model that would only show slight variations in equipment and insignia,” he added.

Under the agreement, France and Germany will set up working groups to identify projects for cooperation and a roadmap reaching to 2030.

“Military experts on both sides need to sit down together and think about what tanks will look like in the future,” Beemelmans said.

The working groups are due to deliver a final report by December and the starting date for the first project should coincide with the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Elysee Treaty in January 2013, he said.

This friendship treaty, signed by France’s Charles de Gaulle and the then-West Germany’s Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1963, established a framework for regular consultations between the two countries after more than a century of conflict.