In Prague, Ministers agree to a 3-month moratorium for the Airbus A400M
The Defense Ministers participating in the Airbus A400M program, meeting on the sidelines of the informal meeting of Defense Ministers in Prague on March 12, agreed to propose a three-month moratorium to the industrialist EADS responsible for designing and manufacturing this new European military aircraft.
The program took such a delay - three years according to EADS to five years according to other sources - that certain Ministers had evoked, more or less officially, the idea of withdrawing from the program or of requiring solid counterparts. The contract signed between the States – via Occar (Joint Organization for Cooperation in Armaments) – and the manufacturer allows the sponsors to withdraw from the program in the spring of 2009.
The idea of the moratorium therefore consists in allowing the sponsoring countries to engage in discussions with the manufacturer to try to take stock of the state of the program, its difficulties in implementation and the question of possible financial penalties, in a climate appeased.
For Hervé Morin, the French Defense Minister, this idea of a moratorium has been accepted by the seven countries participating in the program. “The principle (is) that nations take back control with in discussions,” he explained. “No state will take a decision without discussing this issue with the others,” he then added. The Spanish Defense Minister, Carme Chacon, confirmed this positive approach. "We all want the defense industry to weigh in." For the German Defense Minister, the contract must be respected.
This subject could be raised, at least bilaterally, at the European summit on 19 and 20 March.
© Nicolas Gros-Verheyde / Europolitics
