Frankrijk en Duitsland eensgezind over Europese Grondwet (en)

There are "no insurmountable differences" between Germany and France on the future of the EU constitution, chancellor Angela Merkel said after meeting French president Jacques Chirac in Paris on Thursday (12 October).

The German presidency, starting in January, will "strive to establish a sort of roadmap" on the charter she added, Le Monde reports. "Everything that we will do, will be in tight consultation with France."

Mr Chirac also made a show of strength around the old EU Franco-German axis, saying "France is determined to work hand-in-hand with Germany for the success of the German presidency."

He described Berlin's plans to put together an EU-wide declaration on the state and future of the union on the EU's 50th anniversary in March as "an expression of Germany's genius for Europe."

The pair also speculated on the future of troubled Franco-German plane producer, Airbus, which has seen share prices tumbling and billions wiped off the profit sheet in recent months.

Mr Chirac suggested any job cuts at the firm should be "harmoniously shared" between France and Germany and predicted the company "is destined to become...the world's leading aircraft maker."

But tensions remain behind the facade of fine words, German daily Die Welt writes, saying that Mr Chirac in a behind-closed-doors meeting with Ms Merkel and her cabinet ministers complained the chancellor had not personally consulted him on her EU presidency agenda.

The two leaders' visions on the constitution do differ in important respects. Ms Merkel said the day before meeting Mr Chirac she wants to see a fully-fledged EU constitution document in place by 2009.

But Paris' line is that for the time being, the EU should instead tinker-about with the existing treaty with individual French politicians calling for a slimmed-down version of the constitution.

Presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing for a mini-treaty focusing primarily on institutional reform.

Mr Sarkozy's likely socialist rival for the job, Segolene Royal, has not shown her hand on the treaty yet, saying merely that the French "need to restore their desire for Europe" before serious discussions can resume.

Ms Merkel also failed to give explicit backing to Mr Chirac's plan of "shared" Airbus job losses and gave a more muted expression of "confidence" in the future of the company.

Nuances in rhetorical style aside, analysts agree that the company's woes stem from the politically-motivated split in management structure, with French and German executives sharing equal power.

While not an EU project as such, Airbus' embarrassing delays on building Europe's flagship airliner, the A 380, have a symbolic impact on perceptions of the vigour of the European project as a whole.