TIM RIPLEY
European aerospace executives at the show are despondent at the continuing German defence budget cuts that could threaten the A400M airlifter and other projects at the heart of attempts to create the continent's own rapid-reaction force.
Thursday's announcement of a $285 million cut in the German defence budget did nothing to lift the spirits of those looking forward to inter-government agreement on contract details by the start of the show.
Negotiations were in high gear at NATO and European Union summits last week, but as Flight Daily News went to press there were no indications of a successful outcome.
Squeezed by a budgetary deficit and political pressures to increase social funding, Berlin has slashed the defence budget, with the result that many key European defence programmes face cancellation or re-organisation around a smaller core of nations determined to press ahead with them.
Exasperated
A spokesman for British defence secretary Geoff Hoon could not confirm whether his boss would be flying to Le Bourget for the much heralded signing of the memorandum of understanding to launch the A400M.
But even an MoU might only be an effort to paper over the cracks and give German defence minister Rudolf Scharping a chance to rejig his free-falling budget.
Executives of Airbus parents EADS and BAE Systems are reported to be exasperated by German attempts to defer paying for their quota of A400Ms until well after delivery, demanding to know why they should act as an unofficial bank for the German Government.
British defence procurement ministers have also expressed "unease" at the prospect of the UK and other countries effectively having to bear a disproportionate share of the cost of A400M development.
Partner
At Farnborough last year the A400M partner nations declared that they would procure the aircraft in these numbers: Belgium 7, France 50, Germany 73, Italy 16, Luxembourg 1 (in close co-operation with Belgium), Spain 27, Turkey 26 and the UK 25.
Portugal subsequently indicated its intention to rejoin the programme with an initial order of four aircraft, bringing the total to 229.
Source: Flight Daily News
