Make-or-break talks on the future of the troubled Airbus A400M military transport aircraft project deadlocked in Berlin today, with Germany insisting it would not pay for cost overruns, dpa reported. The chiefs of Airbus and its parent company EADS have given the seven nations which still have orders in place for the plane a deadline of the end of January to pay more. Other nations such as South Africa have cancelled their orders. France has led calls to inject more state money into the project, arguing that 40,000 jobs are at stake, while Germany says Airbus as a commercial enterprise should carry its own losses. As the Berlin talks ended fruitlessly, a German spokesman said Chancellor Angela Merkel had just phoned French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but declined to say if the plane was the topic. The governments of France and Germany are the most powerful shareholders in EADS. Production of the type, which made its maiden flight in December, is nearly two years late and 25 per cent over budget. The plane has often been criticized as a superfluous attempt to imitate a trusty workhorse plane made by the United States, the Hercules. A total of 180 planes have been ordered, by Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium and Turkey. Airbus has said that if the seven countries do not pay more for their aircraft - or accept fewer A400Ms for the same bill - it will scrap the project. German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told a news agency, Bloomberg, "Getting less for the same money is not something I can accept." He said he would not agree to "blackmail." Negotiations have been ongoing for some nine months. Airbus has already received some 5.7 billion euros (8.04 billion dollars) in advance payments, which it would have to pay back if the talks do not succeed and it has to scrap the plane.
