EUROPE'S Airbus plane-making consortium has decided to put on hold its restructuring plans to become a single integrated company, a German newspaper reported on Saturday.

Germany's Welt am Sonntag, in a statement released ahead of publication on Sunday, said the Airbus supervisory board had decided at a May 27 meeting in Toulouse, France, on the change in strategy, which was first announced last January.

The newspaper, noting the meeting's results have not yet been made public, said the talks have become complicated over how to split up the mix OF civil and military programmes.

The Airbus partners are in talks to change its status to an integrated limited liability company owning its own assets by 1999 as part of a bid to improve competitiveness.

The strategy change agreed to at the meeting was influenced by the announced merger plans of US aerospace companies Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, the newspaper said.

Airbus is a consortium made up of French state-owned SteNationale Industrielle Aerospatiale, British Aerospace Plc, Dasa, a unit of Germany's Daimler-Benz AG and Construcciones Aeronauticas SA (CASA) of Spain. An Airbus spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

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