Istanbul - The seven European countries which have ordered the delayed Airbus A400M military transport aircraft inched closer to an agreement on covering cost-overruns, but did not clinch a deal yet, officials said Friday. Ministers of defence from France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Belgium and Luxembourg met Thursday on the margins of a NATO meeting in Istanbul to face calls from the A400M's manufacturer, EADS, for at least 4.4 billion euros (6 billion dollars) over the original 20 billion euros (27.5 billion dollars) projected for the aircraft.
"Major progress has been achieved in the negotiations," the ministers said in a joint statement.
A meeting in Paris on Thursday between French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel, during a Franco-German summit, failed to break the deadlock on the issue.
Participating nations "confirmed the decision to continue the A400M project", but also urged EADS "to assume its responsibilities for the project and to respect committments made" and called for "a quick conclusion of talks with Airbus Military."
French defence minister Herve Morin said Thursday the timeframe envisaged to close the deal is "two to three weeks."
Morin explained that France is willing to give 400 million euros (550 million dollars) to EADS as "an advance loan" to be paid back later once the project is up and running.
If other participants in the project, starting from Germany and Spain, also came up with loan offers, Morin estimated that 1 to 1.5 billion euros could be raised in addition to the 2 billion euros already pledged by A400M countries.
His German counterpart Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, however, did not make any commitments. "We have not agreed on any number in any form," he said on Friday.
The French government is keen to avoid the project being scrapped, saying that 40,000 European jobs hung in the balance.
A total of 180 planes have been ordered, by Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium and Turkey. Germany and France are the A400M's most important customers with 60 and 55 planes ordered, respectively.
