The EU has appealed against a World Trade Organisation ruling condemning its subsidies for Airbus, prolonging a dispute with the US for at least several more months.
A WTO spokeswoman confirmed that the EU had filed the appeal shortly before a special session of the WTO's dispute settlement body. The meeting, now cancelled because of the appeal, had been called by the US to adopt last month's ruling by a panel of experts in the six-year-old case.
This would have required the EU to end prohibited export subsidies by Britain, Germany and Spain for Airbus's A380 airliner within 90 days, and withdraw other subsidies found illegal by the WTO or reverse their adverse effects.
'This dispute is too important to allow the legal misinterpretations of the panel to go unchallenged,' EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said in a statement.
The EU argues that the aid that the WTO panel found to be prohibited export subsidies was not dependent on foreign sales, and that the panel's judgment on other subsidies was faulty.
The appeal, which had been widely expected, followed a decision by another WTO panel examining the EU's countersuit against US aid for Airbus rival Boeing to postpone an initial confidential ruling until mid-September from July 16.
Louis Gallois, chief executive of Airbus parent EADS, has said that the delay, announced as both aerospace companies battle for a $50 billion contract from the US Pentagon for tankers, was unfair.
The Europeans had hoped that likely criticism of the Boeing subsidies in that case would have undermined the US company's allegations that the EADS offer, based on the Airbus A330 plane, was possible only because of the EU subsidies.
WTO appellate judges must rule within 60 days under an accelerated timetable for prohibited subsidies, but in a complex case like this they could well take longer.
After that, if the US believes the EU is not complying with the ruling within a mutually agreed period, it can launch a further compliance case. Meanwhile, the rulings in the dispute over Boeing aid will be issued. As a result many trade lawyers believe the dispute will ultimately be settled through negotiations between the two sides.
