The seven partner countries in the troubled Airbus A400M military transport aircraft programme are set to meet with Airbus executives in Berlin on Thursday, a French defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

The seven nations -- Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey -- met in London last week as doubts grew on the future of the delayed and over-budget multi-billion-euro (dollar) project.

Airbus has threatened to scrap the project if it does not get more money from the partner countries and has warned this could in turn hurt the financial viability of all of Airbus, which employs 52,000 people around Europe.

Britain's defence ministry said the partners had voiced commitment to the project during their meeting in London but "not at any price."

Airbus parent group EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space company, has said it is ready to negotiate an "acceptable" deal over the A400M.

The seven client nations have ordered a total of 180 A400M aircraft for about 20 billion euros (29 billion dollars) but the project has been plagued by setbacks and is expected to cost up to an additional 11 billion euros.