According to several sources, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are to agree to scrap the company's dual management system which sees a French and German executive share the functions of the EADS chief executive and chairman positions.

This complicated structure, as well as the difficulty of balancing other national interests at the heart of the company, has been blamed for many of the problems afflicting Airbus, which is based in Toulouse, southwest France.

"EADS has to become a normal company," new French President Sarkozy said at the Paris Air Show last month, underlining complications caused by the group's unusual management and shareholder structure.

"We agree with the view that a company like EADS can only exist if it has efficient structures," said German Chancellor Merkel at the end of May after a meeting with the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon.

Airbus is pushing through a radical restructuring plan to correct some of the organisational and commercial problems that led to it posting a loss last year despite delivering a record number of planes.