Spain Proposes A400M Aircraft Deal
Spain has proposed that buyer nations of the Airbus A400 military transport plane pay 2.6 billion euros (1.63 billion pounds) of cost overruns on the delayed project, newspaper El Pais said on Thursday, citing a defence ministry letter.
Airbus and parent EADS <EAD.PA> are holding urgent talks with seven NATO nations to prevent the 20 billion-euro A400M project collapsing under the weight of delays and cost overruns.
Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey ordered 180 of the troop planes in 2003 to support increasingly global operations.
But technical problems pushed Europe´s biggest defence project 11 billion euros over budget and delayed the expected first deliveries by four years to 2013.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
