The German co-head of European aerospace firm EADS spoke out against the German government taking a stake in the crisis-hit company and downplayed the panic that has followed warnings of job losses.
Germany has said that it is considering the option of buying a stake in Airbus parent EADS to help protect German plants and jobs after French co-Chief Executive Louis Gallois said the planemaker would need a painful restructuring to put it back on track after production problems with its flagship Airbus A380.
In an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse published on Saturday, EADS co-Chief Executive Tom Enders criticised the "hysteria" that has followed Gallois's comments.
"There is no reason for Germany to come in as a shareholder," Enders said. "We have real problems, but no Franco-German war has broken out and nor are EADS and Airbus about to go bankrupt."
German Economy Minister Michael Glos has also publicly expressed his reservations over the government taking a stake in the company.
Enders told Die Presse that "what would be best" was if "we were allowed to get on with our work".
The crisis at EADS erupted after the company acknowledged earlier this month that problems with the A380 had led to two-year delivery delays and a 4.8 billion-euro ($6.03 billion) future profit shortfall. Airbus Chief Executive Christian Streiff quit on Monday after just 100 days in the job.
"We have a difficult situation ahead of us and, to that extent, we have to think about and implement fundamental changes at Airbus," Enders said.
"We don't lack strength in innovation, the deficits lie in the organisation and the working processes. There must be a harmonisation here, and a partial slimming down."
He reiterated that his preferred model for EADS would be a broad shareholder base with no state involvement.
The French government currently owns 15 percent of EADS, while German carmaker DaimlerChrysler and French media group Lagardere are reducing their stakes to 22.5 percent and 7.5 percent respectively.
Daimler has repeatedly said it plans to hold onto at least 15 percent of EADS and that it would only reduce its stake to that level in consultation with the other stakeholders. The current structure aims to maintain a French-German balance.
Germany's Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday that German state development bank KfW planned to buy 7.5 percent of EADS from Daimler. The port city of Hamburg, where Airbus has its main German plant, was also willing to buy.