"I hope the British will join in setting up a joint group in military aeronautics that will go much further than just preliminary studies," Bischoff told French financial newspaper Les Echos.

EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, is the parent company of Airbus, whose latest project, the A380 plane will be the world's biggest civilian airliner when it flies next year.

Airbus is 80-percent owned by EADS and 20-percent owned by BAE Systems of Britain.

Bischof said he hoped Europe would never repeat the past error of developing competing products in parallel.

This was reference to the development of two competing European fighter aircraft -- the Eurofighter, made by a consortium of EADS, BAE Systems and Italy's Alenia; and the Rafale made by France's Dassault Aviation.

Bischof, a German, co-chairs the board of EADS with France's Arnaud Lagardere.

EADS and Dassault Aviation recently announced an agreement to cooperate in the production of pilotless aircraft called drones. The accord covers two French defence ministry programme -- one to develop a combat drone called a Neuron and another to develop a reconnaissance version called EuroMale.

"I hope in future we'll be able to establish very close cooperation between EADS and Dassault", said Bischoff, recalling that EADS has a 46-percent stake in Dassault Aviation.

He said the EADS target of an operational profit margin of 10 percent by 2007 was "ambitious but within reach".

He stressed that the US-German automobile manufacturer DaimlerChrysler, which on Thursday sold 2.73 percent of its stake in EADS was "content with its strategic participation in EADS and has no intention of altering it".

"(The sale) only concerns a surplus holdings and does not change its (DaimlerChrysler's) fundamental position," he said. Daimler-Chrysler has a 30.07-percent strategic stake in EADS.

WAR.WIRE