German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned against protectionism today, after Europe's EADS lost out on a contract to build tanker aircraft for the US, according to dpa. The leaders said they were "concerned at the circumstances" under which a partnership between US firm Northrop Grumman and EADS ended their bid for the 35-billion-dollars contract, after it appeared that US firm Boeing was granted favourable conditions. Boeing and EADS, the parent company of European planemaker Airbus, had been locked in a bitter feud over the lucrative deal to build 179 tanker planes. With the withdrawal of EADS-Northrop, it left the Boeing as the only other company bidding on the contract for the next generation of aerial refueller aircraft. In a joint communique, Merkel and Sarkozy stressed that transatlantic economic relations had to resist "protectionist temptations," in the defence industry as anywhere else. The leaders said they would "check the consequences of future developments in this matter," in coordination with the European Commission and affected European partners. The Merkel-Sarkozy statement comes after the French leader and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last Friday also condemned the circumstances of the awarding of the contract and accused the US of protectionism.
