As of December 31^st, 2006 and 2005, respectively, 5,602 M € and 5,018 M € of retirement plans and similar obligations, 152 M € and 472 M € of financial instruments as well as 3,309 M € and 2,507 M € of other provisions mature after more than one year.

Due to the retrospective application of the equity approach in the revised IAS 19 “Employee Benefits” previous year’s figures have been adjusted in an amount of 1,118 M € (for further details please refer to “Changes in accounting policies” in Note 2).

a) Provisions for deferred compensation

This amount represents obligations that arise if employees elect to convert part of their remuneration or bonus into an equivalent commitment for deferred compensation.

b) Provisions for retirement plans

When Group employees retire, they receive indemnities as stipulated in retirement agreements, in accordance with regulations and practices of the countries in which the Group operates.

French law stipulates that employees are paid retirement indemnities on the basis of the length of service.

In Germany, EADS introduced a new pension plan (P3) for non-executive employees in 2004. Under the new plan, the employer makes contributions during the service period, which are dependent on salary in the years of contribution and years of service. These contributions are converted into components which become part of the accrued pension liability at the end of the year. Accrued benefits under the old plan are considered through an initial component. Total benefits are calculated as a career average over the entire period of service.

Certain employees that are not covered by the new plan receive retirement indemnities based on salary earned in the last year or on an average of the last three years of employment. For executive employees, benefits are depending on final salary at the date of retirement and the time period as executive.

In the UK, EADS participates in several funded trustee-administered pension plans for both executive and non-executive employees with BAE Systems being the principal employer. These plans qualify as multi-employer defined benefit plans under IAS 19 “Employee Benefits”. EADS’ most significant investments in terms of employees participating in these BAE Systems UK pension plans are Airbus UK and MBDA UK. For Airbus, this remains the case even subsequent to the acquisition of BAE Systems’ 20% minority interests on October 13^th, 2006. Participating Airbus UK employees have continued to remain members in the BAE Systems UK pension plans due to the UK pension agreement between EADS and BAE Systems and a change in UK pensions legislation enacted in April 2006.

Generally, based on the funding situation of the respective pension schemes, the pension plan trustees determine the contribution rates to be paid by the participating employers to adequately fund the schemes. The different UK pension plans in which EADS investments participate are currently underfunded. BAE Systems has agreed with the trustees various measures designed to make good the underfunding. These includes i) regular contribution payments for active employees well above such which would prevail for funded plans and ii) extra employers’ contributions amounting to a total of GBP 446 M (664 M€) over the next ten years until 2016.

Due to the contractual arrangements between EADS and BAE Systems, EADS’ contributions in respect of its investments for the most significant pension scheme (Main Scheme) are capped for a defined period of time (until July 2011 for Airbus UK and until December 2007 for MBDA UK). Contributions exceeding the respective capped amounts are paid by BAE Systems. EADS is therefore neither exposed to increased regular contribution payments resulting from the pension plans’ underfunding nor to a participation in extra contribution payments during the period of the contribution caps. Even after the expiry of the contribution caps the unique funding arrangements between BAE Systems and EADS create a situation for EADS different from common UK multi-employer plans with special regulations limiting regular contributions that have to be paid by EADS UK companies to rates applicable to all participating employers.

Since January 1^st, 2005, BAE Systems prepared its Consolidated Financial Statements under IFRS. Before that date, BAE Systems Consolidated Financial Statements were prepared under UK GAAP and as such did not include information required under IAS 19 to apply defined benefit accounting. Consequently, EADS accounted for its participation in BAE Systems UK defined benefit schemes as if they were defined contribution schemes in accordance with IAS 19. In 2005, EADS requested detailed information from BAE Systems about the different multi-employer pension schemes in order to appropriately and reliably estimate the share of its participation in the schemes’ plan assets, defined benefit obligations (“DBO”) and pension costs. For accounting purposes, the information provided by BAE Systems in 2005 was judged not to be sufficient to identify EADS’ share in the UK pension schemes. Consequently, EADS continued in 2005 to expense the contributions made to the pension schemes as if the plans were defined contribution plans. Adequate information was provided until 2005 in the contingent liabilities section of the notes.

As a result of further requests in 2006, BAE Systems started to share more detailed information for each individual plan in which EADS investments participate. This new information now results in a change in accounting estimates from 2006 year-end closing and is accounted for accordingly under IAS 8 “Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors”. The new information now enables EADS to derive keys per plan to allocate for accounting purposes an appropriate proportion in plan assets, DBO and pension costs to its UK investments as of December 31^st, 2006, taking into account the impact of the capped contributions as well as future extra contributions agreed by BAE Systems with the Trustees.

Actuarial assessments are regularly made to determine the amount of the Group’s commitments with regard to retirement indemnities. These assessments include an assumption concerning changes in salaries, retirement ages and long-term interest rates. It comprises all the expenses the Group will be required to pay to meet these commitments.

The weighted-average assumptions used in calculating the actuarial values of the retirement plans are as follows:

c) Financial instruments

The provision for financial instruments amounts to 231 M € as of December 31^st, 2006 (921 M € as of December 31^st, 2005) and includes in 2006 mainly the negative fair market value of foreign currency forwards (see Note 30 c) “Fair value of financial instruments”).

d) Other provisions

Movements in provisions during the year were as follows: