The French and Dutch governments will issue joint strategy recommendations for Air France-KLM, their finance ministers said on Friday, as they sought to defuse a row over The Hague's surprise purchase of a stake in the airline group, reports Reuters.
Officials from both countries will begin a joint "work process" on Air France-KLM that will make proposals by the end of June, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said after a meeting with his Dutch counterpart Wopke Hoekstra in Paris.
The Dutch government quietly amassed a 14 per cent stake in Air France-KLM in a move announced late on Feb. 26, triggering an immediate diplomatic spat with France, the group's biggest shareholder, with a 14.3 per cent holding.
Shares in the company, which had plunged almost 15 per cent by Thursday night, recovered some of their losses after the ministerial talks on Friday and were up 4.3 per cent as of 0929 GMT in Paris.
"I'm aware our stake acquisition is not very orthodox, but it is based on good intentions," Hoekstra told reporters after talks with Le Maire.
"We want to build a better company, and we want to make sure the interests of both countries are taken into account."
Le Maire, who this week described the Dutch government's intervention as "incomprehensible", while other officials spoke of behavior akin to a corporate raider, sought to play down the dispute, saying both governments wanted a strong airline group.
A spokesman for the Air France-KLM group said he had no immediate comment.
