BERLIN (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will hold talks about European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., the parent company of struggling European plane-maker Airbus, in Toulouse in July, a government spokesman said Monday.
''There will be a meeting in July, only then will they talk in detail about EADS and any related questions,'' government spokesman Thomas Steg said. Both leaders will visit EADS's aircraft maker unit Airbus in Toulouse, he said.
Sarkozy made struggling Airbus the center of his desire for an ''ambitious industrial policy,'' promising last week that his government will seek new investors and was ready to inject new cash into EADS.
''We are ready to follow, we are ready to take the lead, we are ready to put money in,'' he said at an Airbus site near the company's headquarters in Toulouse, southwest France.
German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that Merkel in her meeting with Sarkozy last week in Berlin was not enthusiastic about his plans to raise the government's stake in EADS.
''There is basically no joint agreement yet on this,'' Steg said Monday, adding the German government does not want to comment on Sarkozy's remarks. ''But I want to remind you that it has always been the German government's position on EADS to pursue a private investors' solution and to reduce public stakes in the company,'' he said.
