SEATTLE – The Bush administration should file a World Trade Organization action against the European Union over its subsidies to Airbus, Sen. Patty Murray said Thursday in a speech to union Machinists who work at the Boeing Co.
“We’ve got to stop the subsidies,” Murray said, speaking to a lodge meeting of members of the International Association of Machinists. “Airbus has been breaking the rules for years, and their illegal tricks have cost us jobs.”
Murray, D-Wash., described by Machinists union president Mark Blondin as a “great friend” of aerospace workers and their union, also attacked Airbus for what she called a “false PR campaign” aimed at convincing Congress to award it military contracts.
Airbus’ parent company, EADS, on Thursday released a short-list of cities in the southern United States where it proposes to build a $600 million factory where Airbus A330 jets could be converted into aerial refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force.
Murray dismissed the move as a publicity stunt and vowed that EADS will not get the tanker contract, which originally was awarded to Boeing before a scandal scuttled the deal for 100 Everett-built 767 tankers.
“The Air Force needs those tankers,” Murray told cheering Machinists. “They’re going to be built by an American company and American workers.”
Union workers at Boeing made a lot of sacrifices to help convince the company to assemble the 787 in Everett, Murray said. That’s why Europe should not be allowed to provide government aid to Airbus to help it develop its proposed A350 jet, which is intended to compete with Boeing’s new plane.
Airbus has asked for $1.7 billion in aid to help develop the new plane, Murray said, and European governments are poised to give it. She vowed to stop that.
“If we let Europe subsidize the A350, then all of your sacrifices will have been for nothing, and we cannot let that happen,” she said. “None of us – not me, not you, not Boeing – are going to let Airbus subsidize the A350.”
She said the Bush administration has moved correctly in suspending the old trade agreement with Europe and calling for talks on a new one that would do away with Airbus launch aid – loans that have to be repaid only if Airbus sells enough of the new model to turn a profit.
But “the Europeans have never taken our negotiations seriously,” Murray said. Given that, “it’s time for the U.S. to take Europe to the World Trade Organization and file a trade case.”
The time to act is now, she said, before Airbus gets subsidies and starts work on the A350. “It’s in Europe’s interest to delay. We can’t continue to delay,” she said.
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