The imminence of the repayment date means that auditors to the company will have to place a question mark over the company’s viability in the 2005 annual report.

Eurotunnel has six weeks to come to a deal with creditors, having agreed a new waiver period that will last until the end of March.

However, if no deal is done the company faces the prospect of substitution, which allows the banks to put their own management team in place. Eurotunnel’s statement says that this route would be worse for creditors than the restructuring deal that is under discussion. The Channel Tunnel group wants to present the financial restructuring framework that it has agreed with an ad hoc committee of creditors to all lenders and it called on holders of the junior debt to sign a confidentiality agreement to allow them to participate in the debt negotiations. Many creditors have refused to sign a confidentiality agreement because it would preclude them from any trading in the debt or equity of Eurotunnel.

“The creditors must weigh the interest of taking this plan into consideration, given the often-underlined significance of the group’s contractual commitments in early 2007, when the first major repayments of the debt principal become due,” the statement said.

“In the absence of a consensual debt restructuring, the group would . . . invoke the provisions of the Credit Agreements and the Concession. Eurotunnel considers that having recourse to these would not be more favourable for the subordinated debt-holders than the proposed restructuring.”

A statement from the creditors welcoming the waiver period agreement said: “Whilst there is broad consensus on many important elements, there is much work to be done on the detail of the plan and there are no guarantees that the committee and Eurotunnel will reach a final agreement.”

Any eventual agreement will need to win the support of all classes of Eurotunnel’s debt, as well as shareholders.

The ad hoc committee has argued that Eurotunnel shareholders need to accept economic reality — thought to be code for a debt-for-equity swap. The ad hoc committee represents the European Investment Bank, Ambac, MBIA and Oaktree Capital Management, which claim to hold 73 per cent of the co-financier debt.

Eurotunnel faces a cash crunch as compulsory interest payments start next year and its income is set to fall sharply.