Countries send joint A400M funding bid to EADS

(BERLIN) - The seven countries that ordered the Airbus A400M military transport plane have submitted a joint proposal on how to cover extra costs, a German defence ministry spokesman said Monday.

The state secretaries of Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey have submitted a proposal to the Airbus parent company EADS, which must now respond, the spokesman said at a regular briefing.

"The state secretaries last week worked to adopt a joint position on funding the project. This position will be communicated to the industry today and in the contract, countries confirm their binding intention to continue to support the project A400M," he told reporters.

"It's now important to see how the industry will react to the proposals."

He said it was agreed to remain silent on the details of the plan. All sides are committed to finding a solution as quickly as possible, but no date for the next talks has been set, he said.

EADS declined to comment.

It has threatened to pull the plug on the project unless the seven, which have together ordered 180 of the planes for 20 billion euros (28 billion dollars), stump up more cash, saying the European aerospace sector is at stake.

Germany's parliamentary budget committee recently said the countries may together be willing to pay two billion euros toward the over-runs.

Airbus has 52,000 employees around Europe with about 10,000 working on the A400M, designed as a state-of-the-art aircraft that can carry troops, armoured vehicles and helicopters and would replace Europe's ageing fleet of transport planes.

-- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report --