ABSTRACT
The European Commission believes strongly in the vital role aerospace will play in future prosperity of the Continent. In civil sector, the Commission wants Airbus Industrie to be a tough, but fair competitor to Boeing/McDonnell Douglas. The Commission is more and more concerned by the increasing level of indirect subsidies for United States (US) aerospace industry through National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and by the funnelling of money from vast US military research programmes toward the civil sector. The aerospace industry plays also a major role as an irreplaceable asset to underpin a European Defence Identity. The space sector plays a key role in the development of information technology, which in Europe alone is a market of well over 300bn European Currency Unit (ECU) and growing at nearly 10% per year. As with Airbus and commercial air transport sector, there is fierce space sector competition from US whose industry receives heavy government funding through military procurement and research.
