TOULOUSE, France (March 25): Airbus is in discussions with European nations on new defence and space orders as the continent increases spending and is seeing an improvement in supply chains for its core jetliner business, senior executives said at a company event on Monday.

European nations are interested in space assets in part to replace Elon Musk's Starlink, as well as aerospace assets including strategic airlift, they added.

"I think you're...going to see a lot of space and air business come now; what 'a lot' is I will not quantify," Airbus Defence and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn told reporters.

Christian Scherer, the CEO of Airbus' core civil aircraft-making business, said that while any tariffs on aerospace products would be damaging to the industry, it was too early to judge how the latest round of trade tensions would unfold.

"We need to understand what the tariffs are before we can draw conclusions, whether it's for us, for our suppliers — for whom we would be worried — or for our competitors," he said.

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