France and Germany agreed at a summit last Saturday to “consult” on the merger talks, but French President Francois Hollande avoided pledging to create a common position.

The idea of a core 27 percent shareholding in the EADS-BAE combine suggests France would have to pay out for Lagardere’s 7.5 percent stake and the German government would have to buy all of Daimler’s voting interest of 22.5 percent in EADS at a critical time for state budgets.

The approach offered by EADS and BAE is to offer instead of the current stakeholder deal at EADS a “special share” in the combined group for each of the governments of France, Germany and Britain, granting them the right to block any future hostile takeover of the merged firm.