'Calm' Urged in EADS Leadership Debate

The incoming German co-chairman of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), Thomas Enders, urged his French counterpart, Noel Forgeard, to order Wednesday, calling for "calm" and "discretion" in the politically sensitive debate about the leadership of EADS. "All important questions will be decided within the group and not in public," Enders told daily Die Welt in an interview. Forgeard and Enders have both been nominated to take over the running of EADS next July when the current co-chairmen, Rainer Hertrich and Philippe Camus, step down. But Forgeard, currently head of EADS' Airbus unit, has been very vocal in arguing for the current system of dual leadership to be abolished and for EADS to be headed by a single chairman. Enders is seen as representing Germany's interests within EADS, because he is a close ally of Juergen Schrempp, the head of German-US auto giant DaimlerChrysler which holds a 30.07-percent stake in EADS. Enders told Die Welt that the success of EADS lay in its "European cultural diversity."