Zaragoza, 25/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - At their meeting in Zaragoza on Saturday, the EU's defence ministers hailed the agreement between the German government and the Bundesrat, releasing funding for the Airbus 400M carrier aircraft. The German parliament's budget committee gave the go-ahead on Wednesday to the release of EUR 5.1 billion from the 2002 budget for the first 40 A400Ms (of Germany's total order of 73 A400Ms). The political parties and the German government also agreed to the EUR 4.4 billion funding for the remaining 33 planes from the 2003 budget (the details of which will be decided after the September elections).
The eight countries involved in the project (Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, the UK, Luxembourg, Portugal and turkey) were happy with the German compromise, signalled the Spanish defence minister Federico Trillo in Zaragoza. German defence minister Rudolf Sharping said that everyone had approved Germany's formula, aware that the government intends to pursue its commitments next year, adding that the A400M programme can now progress. He signalled that Germany's partners were aware that this was an interim decision and were confident that the Bundesrat's pledge would be respected. He stressed that the European military plane project represented some 4000 jobs in Europe.