Boeing has benefited from $23.7 billion in illegal state aid, the European Union said today.
This aid hurt European consortium Airbus and let Boeing undercut its rival in the battle for sales in the big plane market, the EU said in written evidence to a World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel examining its complaint against Washington.
"The EU's submission exposes in detail the massive, long-standing and WTO-inconsistent subsidisation of Boeing's civil aircraft division," the 27-state bloc said in a statement.
The world's two largest economies have brought separate cases alleging illegal assistance to their aircraft industries in what is the biggest commercial dispute ever to come before the global trade arbitrator.
The United States accuses Europe of granting $100 billion in illegal aid to Airbus over the years, of which it will seek the immediate return of some $4.5 billion if it wins.
No ruling in the case against Airbus is expected before September, with a verdict in the Boeing case due in early 2008.
Around $16.6 billion of the subsidies to Boeing had come through research and development support from the US Defence Department and NASA, the space agency, which allowed Boeing to use and out-license its technology without having to pay for it, the EU claims.
Boeing had also received $2.2 billion in export subsidies, already condemned in another WTO case, and some $4 billion in tax breaks and other benefits from the states of Washington and Kansas as well as other authorities, the EU added.