By Edward James/Singapore

SINGAPORE (February 24, 2000) - BAe Systems faces a minority say in the running of Airbus, EADS chiefs warned yesterday.

"We will have control" claimed Aerospatiale Matra chief executive Philippe Camus at Asian Aerospace 2000.

"Airbus should be part of EADS" he said.

Camus will be one of the joint CEOs of the yet to be created EADS, which is a merger between Aerospatiale Matra, DaimlerChrysler (Dasa) and Spain's CASA.

BAe Systems has just 20% of Airbus.

For its part, BAe Systems executives were not being drawn into the "debate" except to say that the company wanted to be a major player.

Late last year BAe Systems had declared it wanted to increase its work share in Airbus.

Camus suggested that Airbus would be become one of five divisions within EDAS.

"We represent 80% of Airbus, capability and assets"

Camus said that a proposal has been put to BAe Systems to add their assets to the new Airbus company and he was confident they would accept.

He added that he hoped that the Airbus structure would be settled before June.