Boeing 'Very Confident' In WTO Subsidy Battle

How confident is Boeing about the US case's strength? After all, the EU claims that it has already repaid more than it has borrowed in launch aid and that other loans, for example from the EIB, have been made according to standard policy.

Robert T. Novick, representative of Boeing in the WTO aircraft subsidy cases: Very confident in the case. It is not true that launch aid has been paid back. In many cases it has been forgiven; in many cases it’s never paid back because the planes that it was provided for end before the repayment period, and; even when it is paid back – which is the critical point – it is paid back on the basis of interest rates that the commercial market would not have accepted for the kind of money that Airbus receives. So paying back a loan at an interest rate that’s not commercial still provides a subsidy. So the defense that "we’re paying it back" does not make it WTO consistent.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/trade/boe...-wto-subsidy-battle/article-159836