The EU says a threat by the United States to impose trade sanctions over subsidies provided to plane maker Airbus is premature and not in line with World Trade Organization (WTO) procedure.
"We consider this move premature and not in line with the appropriate sequence of events in WTO disputes", said an EU trade spokesman. "We will nevertheless review the requests carefully and consider the next steps."
Earlier, the US said it had rejected an EU plan to eliminate subsidies provided to Airbus. The US said it would request permission from the WTO to impose potentially billions of dollars annually in trade sanctions.
"The WTO clearly found that every single grant of launch aid to Airbus, for every single aircraft that company produced, was a WTO-inconsistent subsidy that caused unfair adverse effects to US industry and jobs," US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.
Last week, the EU presented a plan to comply with a WTO appellate body ruling against European government support for Airbus in a case brought by Washington in 2004.
Together with an EU counter-complaint over US support for Boeing, the long-running aircraft dispute is the world's largest trade spat, affecting more than 100,000 jobs in a plane market worth more than $2 trillion.
