Although Bischoff says that Germany's current four-year civil-aerospace support programme - amounting to DM150 million a year - is "a decisive first step", Europe's overall annual DM800 million funding in this sector is still less than one-quarter of expenditure in the USA.
Furthermore, national aerospace-research activities must be better co-ordinated and oriented more towards specific applications, says Bischoff. The first test would be the high-capacity Airbus A3XX.
"If we want to keep in Europe an efficient aerospace industry with core capacities in all important fields, this cannot be done in national single-handed efforts," he says, adding that European restructuring must be tackled head-on, rather than waiting for the completion of long drawn-out national consolidation processes.
Bischoff says that German industry "...strongly supports" defence-budget cost-cutting measures by France and Germany.
In a reference aimed mainly at the French, however, he warns that European politicians should not risk a strategic industry for short-term savings, stressing that the withdrawal of individual countries from European armament programmes would cause "irreparable" political and economic damage.
"Capabilities in defence technology cannot be switched on and off," he says. Nevertheless, he says that the military sector has passed its low point and, on the civil front, the recent rise in Airbus orders is pushing production to record levels.
BDLI companies boosted their turnover in 1995 to DM17.8 billion from a 1994 low of DM16.8 billion, and the figure is expected to grow by about 9% annually this year and in 1997, says Bischoff.
Source: Flight International