GENEVA — The European Union on Wednesday appealed a landmark trade ruling that it gave plane manufacturer Airbus a wide range of illegal subsidies in its battle with U.S. competitor Boeing Co., unfairly tilting a market worth more than $3 trillion over the next two decades.
The appeal covers nearly the entire case against European government support for Airbus, from the billions in low-interest government loans used to construct the A380 superjumbo to infrastructure provisions and research-and-development funding.
Despite the appeal, EU officials insisted that last month’s 1,061-page decision by the World Trade Organization was “mixed.” Legal experts, however, say Washington resoundingly won the first round as Brussels awaits a confidential verdict in September in a countersuit alleging illegal U.S. aid for Boeing.
The 6-year-old case is moving with record slowness, and the EU appeal will again delay U.S. hopes of speedy compliance with WTO rules on loans and other payments to France- based Airbus — allowing European governments to first see the results of their complaint that Boeing receives millions in backdoor subsidies through NASA and U.S. Defense Department contracts.
The two rulings could set industry-defining guidelines, and ones that become even more important as rivals from China and elsewhere emerge.
