Andrew Chuter Kevin O'Toole/LONDON
GERMAN, FRENCH and UK Government ministers and aerospace-industry leaders have met secretly in Paris, to discuss measures to maintain European competitiveness in the face of growing global competition.
The meeting, which took place on 7 February, is expected to be the first in a series of gatherings aimed at thrashing out a common position on European aerospace industry restructuring and other competitive issues. The next meeting is due in September.
UK trade and industry minister Michael Heseltine, along with British Aerospace chief executive Dick Evans and Rolls-Royce chairman Sir Ralph Robbins, met French transport minister Bernard Bosson, industry minister Jose Rossi, Snecma chief Bernard Dufour, Aerospatiale chief executive Louis Gallois and combat-aircraft builder Serge Dassault. Germany was represented by economic minister Gunter Rexrodt, as well as Jurgen Schrempp, who is due to step up to the chairmanship of Daimler-Benz in May, and Manfred Bischoff, his replacement as chairman at the group's aerospace subsidiary.
Although official sources describe the meeting as "private" and refuse to give details of the discussions, it is understood that they focused on ways to restructure Europe's civil and military aerospace industries into a series of regional consortia.
The European industry has become increasingly concerned about the scale of rationalisation taking place in the US market, which has created giants in areas such as combat aircraft and missiles.
Gallois has been among those issuing stern warnings that European manufacturers risk being dwarfed by their US counterparts as they gain economies of scale and market leverage from their sheer size.
Manufacturers have also been pushing hard for the creation of a unified industrial policy at a European level. That would include the pooling of research-and-development spending under the auspices of a single European organisation.
The creation of a single regional-airliner consortium to sit beneath Airbus Industrie is one of the key long-term goals in the civil sector.
Airbus has already been identified as the focus for the Future Large Aircraft military-transport programme. Heseltine has been a solid supporter of BAe's efforts to win a commitment from the UK Government to rejoin the pan-European programme.
Additional reporting by Gilbert Sedbon
Source: Flight International