German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac on Friday called for a "fair division" of the burden in solving European aircraft producer Airbus' current crisis, local reports said.

"We need to divide the opportunities and the burdens equally between our countries," Merkel said after meeting Chirac at Meseberg Palace, north of Berlin, German news agency Dpa reported.

Echoing Merkel, Chirac referred to the social impact of possible job cuts as the company seeks to sharpen its competitiveness against its rival Boeing.

"Plants must not be closed without compensation...this is the agreement we have reached," he said.

However, the commercial decisions had to be taken by Airbus and its parent company EADS, he said.

Earlier this week, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told French RTL radio that Airbus has decided to slash 10,000 jobs as the company is trying to save 2 billion euros (about 2.6 billion US dollars) per year to make up for huge losses caused by delivery delays of the company's A380 superjumbo aircraft.

German government spokesmen had refuted Villepin's statement as sheer "speculation," saying that decisions of job cuts have yet to be made by the company's management.

German Economy Minister Michael Glos has repeatedly warned that German defence orders for Airbus's parent company EADS could be cancelled if the country's Airbus workers are disproportionately affected.

Most of Airbus' 57,000 workers are employed in Germany and France.

Source: Xinhua