ABSTRACT
Political considerations override all others in the promulgation of international aerospace programmes. At one level, that of the EEC, supranational initiatives are deemed vital to the maintenance of a vibrant European aerospace industry. It is held that individual national efforts can no longer counter the technical and marketing dominance of the USA and only co-operation among Community members will suffice to prevent the "commanding heights" of the industry from becoming an American monopoly. In short, European self respect demands a concerted effort in response to the US challenge. At another level, that of the NICs, the desire is also to consolidate self respect, but this time through the acquisition of a prestigious aerospace industry which, by its very nature, requires co-operation in the form of technology transfer from the AICs. To these essentially political motivations must be added genuine (and frequently overshadowed) economic ones. Not only can R&D costs be reduced by sharing existing information and pooling resources for subsequent work, but production costs can be made more acceptable by merging contracts in order to arrive at sizeable production runs.
