BEIJING, May 31 (Xinhuanet) -- French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have met in Paris in a bid to set aside differences and find common ground on Europe’s struggling economy.

The two leaders have agreed to propose that the 17-nation appoint a full-time president and hold more frequent summits to coordinate economic policy. At a joint news conference, Hollande said would stick to balancing its budget by 2017, but did not go into details as to how it would do so. Merkel says France has been given two extra years to meet its deficit reduction target. She urges France to implement reforms and reduce its budget deficit to 3 percent of .

"The European Commission is perfectly within its remit when it gives a certain number of areas which we have to work on. But the state, the government, is acting within its own responsibilities when it talks about the way of doing it, the method, and even the different options available to achieve the desired result," French President Francois Hollande said.

"And has said very clearly that we see two things: first, we’ve agreed that the Commission gave France one more, or two years’ more time to achieve the deficit goal of 3.0 percent. But this was also coupled with the expectation, and the French president just confirmed this, that reforms are also carried out. And both go hand in hand," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

(Source: CNTV.cn)