Brussels, 26/08/2004 (Agence Europe) - Under pressure from Boeing to revise the 1992 air agreement establishing rules on public funding of civil aeronautical manufacturers in the USA and Europe, the discussions begun in July will continue.
Meetings between services will continue in September, although an exact agenda has not been worked out and the Commissioner in charge of competition has not been involved, indicated Tilman Lueder, spokesperson for competition, on Wednesday. Lueder added that significant investment was needed in for the development of new equipment in the sector and that there were always suspicions about the participation of countries to their funding. Boeing, which wants to re-negotiate the agreement, considers that Airbus has benefited from unfair subsidies. Airbus is contesting this allegation and has provided assurances that it has only received repayable loans, which are in keeping with the agreement (EUROPE 13 July). Last week, the Commission declared that it was open to discussions about a possible updating of the agreement but explained that an exchange of views should focus on two points: direct aid (which European countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany provide to Airbus in the form of loans, and indirect aid, which Boeing benefits from in the USA through defence contracts.
On a visit to Seattle (a Boeing fiefdom) on 13 August, president Bush declared that he had asked Robert Zoellick the US representative for trade to tell the Europeans during his visit in September that they were considering these subsidies as illegal and that he would consider all options available to get rid of them, including lodging a complaint at the WTO if necessary. Peter Mandelson, who will be taking over from Pascal Lamy as European Commissioner for trade on 1 November, declared on Tuesday in the China Daily that in the electoral context of the declarations made in the USA he thought that "the best judgement will be applied after November" and that he believed that "we can avoid a trade war".