The figure is more than three times the two billion euros the seven client nations are willing to pay to get the long-delayed project off the ground, the Bundestag lower house of parliament said in a statement.

Berlin nevertheless expects a deal to be reached "next week or the week after," albeit after an initial deadline of January 31, on the issue.

A new meeting will be held between representatives of EADS and the client countries' governments Tuesday in Berlin, a German defence ministry spokesman said.

"The goal was and is to find a quick solution," he told AFP.

The latest figures emerged during a hearing late Wednesday of a representative of the German defence ministry before the budgetary committee on progress in the protracted negotiations .

"According to the ministry, all seven European nations that want to buy the transport plane have dismissed these demands as 'baseless'," the Bundestag said in a statement.

"Nevertheless, Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said we are ready to negotiate at the state-secretary level because, in terms of security policy, the transport plane has no alternative."

Three crisis meetings this month have failed to produce a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, international ratings agency Fitch warned on Thursday that failure to reach an accord, or an agreement to EADS' disadvantage, could lead it to downgrade its ratings on the aerospace giant.

Fitch said in a statement that it expected the parties to reach a settlement in the end but cautioned that it could have a "negative impact" on EADS' BBB+ long-term rating.

Any rating cut tends to increase a company's borrowing costs.

Seven countries have ordered 180 of the aircraft for 20 billion euros (28 billion dollars) from European plane maker Airbus but the project is three years behind schedule and a reported 11 billion euros over budget.

Airbus has threatened to pull the plug unless the seven -- Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg and Turkey -- stump up more cash, warning that the fate of the European aerospace giant depended on the project.

Airbus has 52,000 employees around Europe, with about 10,000 working on the A400M, a state-of-the-art new aircraft that can carry troops, armoured vehicles and helicopters and would replace Europe's ageing fleet of transport planes.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News