PARIS, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- French and British defense ministers met Friday here to seek possibilities of sharing military equipment, except aircraft carriers.
French Defense Minister Herve Morin said, "We are exploring things like the A400M (military transporter), refueling planes, possibly cooperation on naval capacity, but not on aircraft carriers."
His British counterpart, Liam Fox, said, "In terms of actually being able to share an aircraft carrier, I would have thought that was entirely unrealistic."
The two budget-tight militaries intended to boost their cooperation to save costs.
The British defense ministry faces a 37 billion pound (57 billion U.S. dollars) shortfall over the next 10 years.
The developing of the A400M, Airbus' military transport plane, is running four years behind schedule and 3.5 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars) over budget.
Currently, France has one aircraft carrier and Britain has two.
Early this week, The Times newspaper of Britain reported French and British navies may share their aircraft carriers.
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