EADS’s core investors are to consider a fresh “protection mechanism” to stop foreign takeovers as an alternative to giving France and Germany golden shares, according to the chairman of the European aerospace and defence group.

“The main shareholders should decide [who can take a strategic stake], and not somebody who isn’t a shareholder today,” Rüdiger Grube said, emphasising that any decision ought to be accep-table to financial markets and the European Commission. He said changes might not come this year.