Merkel to Meet With Hollande Ahead of European Summit LONDON - On the eve of a crucial meeting with her fellow European Union leaders, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was due to hold talks with her French counterpart Wednesday, a day after rejecting the prospect of euro bonds but amid signs that she might make one concession to stabilize the currency. Ms. Merkel, without whom no agreement on the debt crisis can be reached, was preparing for a meeting late Wednesday with France's president, François Hollande, in Paris in an effort to bridge significant policy differences before a two-day meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels. "I don't see total debt liability as long as I live," Ms. Merkel told a closed-door meeting Tuesday of lawmakers from her Free Democratic coalition partners in Berlin, referring to a proposal for issuing common euro zone debt that will be discussed at the summit. Mrs. Merkel was also scheduled to give a speech Wednesday to the Bundestag, the German Parliament, in which she was thought likely to reinforce those views. Jens Weidemann, the influential head of the German central bank, underlined Germany's position that issuing any form of common debt among euro zone nations before enacting the necessary structures to create a common political union would threaten the future of the common currency. "The attempt to take the final step of deepened integration, through comprehensive collective liability, at the beginning and refrain from taking the others threatens to endanger the currency union," Mr. Weidmann said Wednesday to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Mr. Weidmann further criticized "that certain governments blatantly push" for the euro zone's problems to be resolved by printing more currency, insisting that it is not part of the principles agreed to when the currency union was formed." Germany is, however, considering another proposal that could help calm markets that are increasingly fearful of a default of a euro zone nation: removing preferred creditor status from the European Stability Mechanism, the euro zone's rescue fund. That provision is thought to have deterred investors from buying sovereign debt because they could face proportionately higher losses in the event of a default. The provision, which is in the preamble to the E.S.M. treaty, might be dropped on a case-by-case basis, according to one euro zone official who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. That could increase the effectiveness of future bond buying by the bailout fund and send a positive signal to financial markets. Also on the agenda for the summit will be the 100 billion euro, or $125 billion, bailout Spain is seeking for its stricken banks. Financial markets have reacted negatively to the bank bailout because it would add to the debt burden of the Spanish government. Spanish officials will press for this funding to be paid direct to the financial institutions, rather than funneled through Madrid. This would require agreement on a change in the rules governing the euro zone's bailout fund - a move that is being resisted strongly by Germany. Berlin might allow the money to go directly to the Spanish government's bank restructuring fund, known by the Spanish acronym Frob, instead of lending it to the government. Euro zone officials, however, insist that the Spanish state would still have liability for the loans even if the change in rules could help the Spanish government take this lending off its books. The prospect of joint euro bonds had been held open by a paper by the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso; the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy; the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi; and the head of the euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker. That document, released Tuesday, sketched out the path toward a banking union on which officials hope to reach agreement at the summit. The paper also outlined a longer-term vision for the future of the single currency, including much closer integration of fiscal policy, with the possibility of the creation of a new "treasury office" - effectively a finance ministry for the euro zone.