The leaders of France and Germany meet Saturday to mark a seminal 1962 speech by Charles de Gaulle, with the euro crisis and a proposed EADS-BAE merger also on the agenda. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said the meeting in the southwestern city of Ludwigsburg, where De Gaulle addressed German youth in a key gesture of post-war reconciliation, was to be largely ceremonial. But a few hot topics will nevertheless figure on the menu. “The issue of EADS and BAE will certainly be addressed at the working lunch with President (Francois) Hollande,” the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters Friday, referring to the mooted tie-up. “There will of course be no decisions this Saturday and you should not go into the press conference expecting any.” The same applied to the issue of tighter checks on the European banking sector, a focus of eurozone crisis-fighting at the moment, Seibert said. Governments have been cautious since the announcement last week that the British defence group BAE and European aerospace behemoth EADS are negotiating a merger.
