Kevin O'Toole/LONDON
The European Commission(EC) is poised to weigh into efforts to accelerate consolidation among Europe's aerospace companies, and restructuring of Airbus Industrie, with the publication of a policy document, which contains stark warnings over the consequences of failing to build cross-border civil and military groupings capable of competing with the merged US giants.
The document, due to be released on 24 September, steers away from making direct recommendations to industry, but leans heavily towards pressure to abandon state-owned national champions.
A draft version of the paper, obtained by Flight International, argues for new "creative structures", such as those used by Anglo-Dutch operations such as Royal Dutch Shell or Unilever which leave national assets in place, but under the umbrella of a larger international structure.
Such concepts are already being discussed within industry as a means of overcoming national sensitivities over defence mergers.
The possibility of pooling the whole industry under a single structure is also mooted, although the EC believes that this is not feasible, and might risk delaying other, more urgent, integration.
The draft also contains some diplomatically phrased comments on the need to move away from state ownership and "narrow" national interests.
"Real progress will depend on any trans-national European aerospace company being a fully independent commercial entity, responsible for programme decisions and raising its own finance," it says, stressing the need to advance Airbus Industrie restructuring away from a consortium. The draft goes on to outline the danger that some European companies which do not take part in mergers could become "isolated" within the region and instead seek alliances across the Atlantic. It adds that this would risk European firms becoming "subcontractors or niche players with a limited technological base".
The preferred option is to build European giants capable of going into transatlantic deals on equal terms. "We should co-operate with the Americans, but as a partner of equal importance," said Helmut Schmitt von Sydow, director of the capital-goods sector at the EC's industrial directorate, talking at the Aerospace 2000 conference in Bristol, UK, on 18 September ahead of the paper's publication.
Von Sydow stresses that, while the EC wants to steer clear of direct intervention in the industry's restructuring, it hopes to act as a "catalyst", while also providing the necessary structures to co-ordinate research, or to create new European company structures.
The draft policy document raises the possibility of the EC backing the new European currency unit against the US dollar for aerospace sales.
Source: Flight International
