BRIZE NORTON: British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande will agree increased cooperation on defence at a mini-summit Friday that looks likely to highlight sharp differences over European Union reform.
The first Anglo-French summit since Hollande's election in 2012 takes place at a Royal Air Force base in Cameron's constituency in Oxfordshire, followed by an informal lunch at a local pub.
Despite an agenda packed with weighty issues, Hollande is unlikely to escape questions from Britain's famously prurient press about his recent split from his partner, Valerie Trierweiler, after an alleged affair with an actress.
While the deals will be about defence, much of the discussion could focus on the EU -- and a meeting of minds appears unlikely.
Under pressure from eurosceptics in his Conservative party, Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU and put the new deal to a referendum by 2017, provided he wins the 2015 general election.
But French officials warned this week that the British prime minister may not get what he wants.
They said that while some EU treaty changes may be necessary, to allow greater integration of eurozone countries, it was far from certain that such changes would happen within the timeframe that Cameron has set out.
Defence cooperation strengthened
The summit venue at the RAF Brize Norton base reflects the strong defence theme, aimed at building on a landmark agreement on defence and security cooperation between Britain and France in 2010.
In a significant move towards shared equipment and weaponry, the two countries will agree to the joint purchase of £500 million (600 million euros, $830 million) of anti-ship missiles for use on naval helicopters, British officials said.
They will also agree to spend £120 million on a two-year feasibility study into jointly producing an armed drone, following provisional work by British and French companies BAE, Rolls-Royce, Thales and Dassault.
The ministers will review progress on setting up a joint force of up to 10,000 soldiers by 2016.
The summit breathes fresh life into the 2010 defence agreement, which was signed by Hollande's predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, and appeared to stall when the current Socialist president was elected.
Despite their differences, both Cameron and Hollande are still driven by the need to cut defence spending following the global financial crisis.
France has also agreed to swap delivery slots for two Airbus A400M military transport aircraft, so that Britain can have them earlier than planned.
Cameron and Hollande inspected a French A400M on the runway at Brize Norton at the start of the summit, and also looked over a Watchkeeper drone.
They are also expected to agree to boost cooperation in the fields of civil nuclear energy -- after French energy giant EDF signed a deal last year to build two reactors in Britain -- and space exploration.
After the summit Hollande and Cameron will retire to the pub to discuss wider issues such as Syria, Iran and the contentious issue of EU reform.
French officials signalled this week that Cameron is unlikely to secure changes to the EU as quickly as he wants.
And one French official said Cameron's proposals to simplify EU bureaucracy were "toxic".
But a British official said the fact that France was even considering treaty change was progress.
"This time last year the question we were getting was 'but nobody wants any treaty change'. Now it's not if, it's when," said the official.
"The prime minister very much sticks by his timetable. We'll keep at it. Will each country have its own perspective? Sure. But we remain very optimistic."
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