GENEVA, June 13: Negotiators from the United States and the European Union blocked each other’s moves in their first formal confrontation in a dispute over aid to Boeing and Airbus at the World Trade Organization on Monday. The United States, which is attacking subsidies by European governments to Airbus, asked the WTO settlements procedure body to set up a special arbitration panel.

As permitted under the procedures, the European Union blocked this request.

However, the United States blocked a request by the EU regarding US aid to Boeing.

The two sides went to the World Trade Organization two weeks ago with a request for arbitration.

Each side may make further requests at another meeting of the disputes body which is likely to be held in the next 10 days.

At this meeting, the two sides will not be able to object to a request for arbitration and special panels, of three to five arbitrators, will be set up.

These first shots were fired here on the same day as the two aircraft manufacturers were also facing each other in a press conference at the Le Bourget air show in France, where each was seeking maximum impact from order announcements.

The dispute is regarded as one of the biggest and the most complicated that the WTO has ever been asked to handle and could last until 2006 or even for many years.—AFP