The British government has warned European aerospace group EADS that it could lose military contracts worth billions of pounds if Airbus wing component work is handed to Germany or Spain instead of Britain, the Financial Times reported Friday.
The business daily cited as its source Lord Paul Drayson, Britain's minister for defence procurement, whose comments were attributed to him by the trade union Amicus. Drayson has told EADS that any decision to abandon a planned investment of 100 million pounds (152 million euros, 196 million dollars) in a new wings facility in Filton, near Bristol in south-west England, would have commercial consequences, the FT said.
According to Amicus, Drayson told union members this week that "if the company proceeds to move the work from the Filton plant to Germany and Spain the government would have no alternative but to review its defence procurement contracts with the company".
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it would not comment on private discussions or meetings involving the minister, but it did not dispute the comments, the FT added.
For its part, EADS told the finance newspaper that it was in "close, ongoing and constructive discussions with the (British) government regarding this matter".
A consortium led by EADS is currently in the final stage of negotiating a 13-billion-pound deal to supply a new fleet of air refuelling tankers to Britain's Royal Air Force.
The country has also ordered 25 A400m military transport aircraft from EADS and the MoD could grant a lucrative maintenance contract for the aircraft to a different company. Airbus employs some 13,000 people in Britain where wings are built for the company at sites in Broughton, north Wales, and Filton.