EADS minority partner Spain said it wants to raise the country's stake to safeguard jobs as the aerospace firm prepares to push through a "painful" restructuring at its aircraft manurfacturing unit Airbus.
Spain's move came as a newspaper report sparked doubts over the future of five Airbus sites in Germany, though the German government said it would ensure any cuts were shared fairly.
Spanish economy minister Pedro Solbes said he wanted to protect the EADS and Airbus work carried out in Spain, according to ABCand El Mundonewspapers today. The country owns 5.4 per cent of EADS through state holding company SEPI.
Spanish government officials have said they would like to double the stake to 10 per cent. However, EADS Co-Chairman Manfred Bischoff was quoted in Les Echos newspaper saying EADS would welcome a larger Spanish stake but not from the state.
"It [Spain] would increase its shareholding if its decision-making capacity in the company was increased and if the workload for the Spanish companies was increased," a spokeswoman for the economy ministry said.
The new Airbus head, EADS co-chief executive Louis Gallois, said yesterday the group's structure had to be simplified and that decisions would be made in the next few months that could lead to job losses among the company's 55,000 staff.
This came after problems related to the production of Airbus's flagship A380 superjumbo aircraft led to two-year delays in deliveries and a 4.8 billion-euro ($6.03 billion) future profit shortfall, plunging the firm into crisis.
SEPI said
today it had no plans to raise its stake. Spain has a seat on the board, but no voting rights.