The European Commission and the US Department of Trade spent two days at the end of last week detailing subsidies, state aid and loan guarantees given by both sides to civil aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing. The talks, held in Geneva, Switzerland, are part of 60 days of negotiations to find a bilateral solution to the two parallel legal cases brought to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by each side alleging abuse of subsidy rules. The EC says it provided "clarification" of the terms under which it provides programme launch loans to Airbus and has asked the US side to detail how military development funds lead to advances in civilian programmes at Boeing. The disputes were lodged on 6 October and the Geneva-based WTO says both sides could agree to changes in the 1992 agreement on large commercial aircraft subsidies without taking the dispute through the organisation's legal channels.
Source: Flight International
