Spain has invited the head of Airbus to travel to Madrid next month to brief defence officials about its troubled A400M military transport plane, the defence ministry said Friday.

The A400M was commissioned jointly in 2003 by the governments of Germany, Belgium, France, Britain, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey, but since its delayed launch in 2013 it has run into difficulty, with delays in delivery of the plane.

A spokesman for the ministry Airbus CEO Tom Enders had asked to meet representatives from these countries, and Spain's junior defence minister Agustin Conde had responded by inviting him and defence officials from those nations to Madrid.

“He sent him a letter inviting him to attend a meeting with the programme's partner countries, on March 30 in Madrid,” the spokesman said.

Airbus delivered 17 A400M in 2016, compared with 11 in 2015 and has delivered two of the military transport planes so far this year.