Brussels, 25/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - When talking to the press after a meeting with Italian MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero said he hoped that Italy's decision to pull out of the large military transport aircraft, Airbus A400M (M for "Military"), announced last week, "will not be the last word". Should the decision be confirmed, "we shall have a lot of explaining to do…", Ruggiero commented before the press. But time is short, as the countries concerned have set 16 November as date for the signing of the contract on building the aircraft, which is to replace the Transalls and Hercules.
You may recall that, on 19 June, the defence ministers of eight European countries undertook, at the 44th air show of Le Bourget, to buy A400Ms, European Future Large Aircraft (FLA). These countries are France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg (together) and Turkey. Italy, however, did not sign the memorandum of understanding on the subject (following the change of government), whereas, in a declaration, Portugal also undertook to join the other partners. On that occasion, French Defence Minister Alain Richard stressed in particular that it was the first programme for which OCCAR (Joint Organisation for co-operation in matters of armaments) was acting as "contracting authority delegated by the States". "These breakthroughs are fully in line with the dynamic of constructing the European defence identity, coherent with the Atlantic Alliance", said Richard.