French and German leaders will try to heal a rift over the location of job cuts and investments at planemaker Airbus after the board of parent EADS failed to agree on a restructuring plan on Sunday.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said today he had talked with Chancellor Angela Merkel about the problems at Airbus and confirmed it is seeking to cut 10,000 jobs.
He also confirmed that Ms Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac would discuss the problems at a summit meeting on Friday.
EADS shares eased 0.08 per cent to €25.82 earlier.
Mr de Villepin said the distribution of job cuts needed to be fair and there should be no forced redundancies. "This company is largely Franco-German, very European and there needs to be an equitable distribution of efforts between the countries," Mr Villepin said.
The EADS board has five Daimlerchrysler and five French-appointed nominees.
Germany's Financial Times Deutschlandsaid today that German carmaker Daimlerchrysler was responsible for halting the planned restructuring because it was worried France would keep too much of the manufacturing work and had concerns over the cost-cut targets.