Trichet Likely to Join Board of Airbus Parent PARIS - Jean-Claude Trichet, the former head of the European Central Bank, was expected to be named Thursday to the board of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, as part of a long-anticipated reshuffling of the group's senior management. Final approval of the nomination of Mr. Trichet, a Frenchman, was expected at a meeting of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space board in Amsterdam later Thursday, said one person with knowledge of the meeting's agenda. Mr. Trichet, 69, was expected to assume the board seat of his compatriot Arnaud Lagardère, 50, who is likely to be promoted to chairman, said the person, who requested anonymity because the information was not yet public. Thomas Enders, the 53-year-old chief executive of Airbus, is due to succeed Louis Gallois as the EADS chief executive. Mr. Gallois turned 68 on Thursday and is set to retire later this year. Mr. Enders will be replaced at Airbus by Fabrice Brégier, 50, currently the plane maker's chief operating officer. Shareholders will likely vote to formalize the nominations at their annual general meeting in May. The EADS board was expected to put off a decision, however, on the creation of a new governance structure, which is intended to preserve the delicate balance of French and German interests in the group. A shareholder pact that dates from the group's creation in 2000 stipulates that the French and German stakes in EADS must be equal. But Mr. Gallois and other top group managers have been pressing for a new arrangement that would allow any investor to buy or sell shares freely in the company, while still giving Paris and Berlin influence over key decisions. Moreover, because of the strategic importance of EADS, both Paris and Berlin have been eager to retain the power to block any potential hostile takeover by a foreign entity. Currently, Mr. Lagardère's eponymous media-to-missiles conglomerate owns a 7.5 percent stake in EADS, while the French government holds 15 percent. Daimler, the German automaker, owns 15 percent and an alliance of German private and public sector banks holds 7.5 percent. Both Daimler and Lagardère have made clear in recent years that they do not view their EADS holdings as core to their operations, and the French and German governments have struggled to broker a sale of the shares in a way that would preserve the ownership balance. Media reports last year indicated that the German state development bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, or KfW, was poised to acquire half of Daimler's holding later this year. France has yet to identify a buyer for Lagardère's stake. In the wake of the 2006 crisis linked to the development of the A380 superjumbo, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and his German counterpart, Angela Merkel, brokered an accord in 2007 that placed Mr. Gallois, a Frenchman, at the helm of EADS and Mr. Enders, a German, in charge of Airbus, the group's largest business unit, for five years. The chairmanship of the group was awarded to a German under the proviso that Mr. Lagardère - also a close friend of Mr. Sarkozy - would take over that post in mid-2012. Correction: January 26, 2012 An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the European Aeronautic Defense and Space board was to meet in Berlin. It planned to meet in Amsterdam.