PARIS (AP) — Airbus said yesterday that its long-awaited restructuring plan, designed to make up for costly production setbacks, has itself been delayed.The European aircraft maker called off a works council meeting and news conference at which the “Power8” turnaround strategy was to have been unveiled today, after French and German shareholders of parent company EADS failed to agree on where to build the A350 XWB — a planned rival to Boeing Co.’s mid-sized 787.

A European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. board meeting ended late on Sunday without agreement on the “cross-national sharing the industrial workload related to the A350 XWB,” the Franco-German defence group said in statement.

In a sign of renewed tensions within EADS, French co-CEO Louis Gallois — who also heads Airbus — defended his restructuring plan in a separate statement issued by the Toulouse, France-based aircraft maker. “I made proposals which I deem balanced, both from an industrial and a technological point of view, and which serve our objective of economic competitiveness,” Gallois said.

“Airbus cannot delay any longer implementing Power8,” he said.

France’s two main financial newspapers, Les Echos and La Tribune, reported yesterday that Gallois is seeking to cut close to 10,000 of the company’s 55,000 jobs, sell off some production units and centralise assembly of the A350 in France, in exchange for agreeing to build a future revamp of the single-aisle A320 airliner in Germany.

Under the plan, France and Germany would each contribute between 3,000 and 4,000 of the job cuts, Les Echos said. Neither paper named sources. Airbus and EADS both declined to comment on the restructuring proposals or the discussions.

Shares of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. rose [EURO]0.72 ($0.95), or 2.9 percent, to close at [EURO]25.84 ($33.93) in Paris, as the delay was overshadowed by media reports that Qatar is mulling the purchase of a 10-percent stake in EADS.