as early as 1995 the german aerospace and defence company daimlerchrysler aerospace (dasa) and its british counterpart british aerospace were said to be eager to create a transnational aerospace and defence company. the two companies envisaged including the french company aérospatiale, the other major european aerospace company, but only after its privatisation. the first stage of this integration was seen as the transformation of airbus from a consortium of british aerospace, dasa, aérospatiale and construcciones aeronáuticas sa into an integrated company; in this aim bae and dasa were united against the various objections of aérospatiale. as well as airbus, british aerospace and dasa were partners in the panavia tornado and eurofighter typhoon aircraft projects. merger discussions began between british aerospace and dasa in july 1998, just as french participation became more likely with the announcement that aérospatiale was to merge with matra and emerge with a diluted french government shareholding. a merger was agreed between british aerospace chairman richard evans and dasa ceo jürgen schrempp in december 1998. however, when the british general electric company put its defence electronics business marconi electronic systems (mes) up for sale on 22 december 1998, british aerospace abandoned the dasa merger in favour of purchasing its british rival. the merger of british aerospace and mes to form bae systems was announced on 19 january 1999 and completed on 30 november. evans stated in 2004 that his fear was that an american defence contractor would acquire mes and challenge both british aerospace and dasa.