François Hollande meets Angela Merkel François Hollande inspects a guard of honour with Angela Merkel after arriving in Berlin this evening. 7.34pm: The Merkel-Hollande talks come as an unexpectedly strong recent economic performance by Germany helped compensate for weaker output in Greece, Italy and Spain. Figures released in European capitals today underlined the two-speed nature of the 17-nation single currency area, even though the 0.5% expansion in Europe's biggest economy helped to compensate for weaker output in Greece, Italy and Spain. But analysts warned that any respite could be short-lived, with the latest flare-up in Europe's long-running sovereign debt crisis likely to damage growth prospects for the rest of the year, reports Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor: Figures released in European capitals on Tuesday showed that Germany - which accounts for 27% of eurozone GDP - bounced back from a 0.2% drop in output in late 2011, while France followed growth of just 0.1% with a quarter of stagnation in early 2012. In the year to the end of March 2012, Germany grew by 1.2% and France by 0.3%. Other countries to post quarterly growth included Finland (1.3%), Austria (0.2%), Belgium (0.3%) and Slovakia (0.8%). But tough austerity measures took their toll on Italy, where the 0.8% quarterly drop in output was the third in a row; Spain, which saw activity decline by 0.3% for a second quarter; and Greece, which reported that the economy was 6.2% smaller at the end of the first quarter of 2012 than a year earlier. The Netherlands also posted a third consecutive quarter of negative growth, with activity down by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2012. Overall, the eurozone economies have shown no growth in the past year, while the 27-nation European Union has seen output increase by just 0.1%. 7.26pm: The Merkel-Hollande press conference is due to get underway in 30 minutes time. 7.17pm: Watchers of this evening's meeting have had their eyes peeled for the first indications of what the body language will be like between the two leaders. Sarkozy and Merkel eventually developed a friendlier working relationship as they worked to resolve the continent's debt crisis, but the relationship between the two often looked awkward to say Some slightly worrying signs emerged from the meeting earlier in Berlin however as Mathieu von Rohr, Paris bureau chief for Der Spiegel, tweeted: 7.07pm: Hollande has been received by Merkel with an honour guard ahead of talks. The two leaders are scheduled to hold a joint news conference following the meeting and then have dinner together. 6.59pm: The two leaders are expected to hold a press conference this evening following talks which, Hollande has said, is about getting to know each other. But there will be much more going on besides that, as the Guardian's Europe Editor, Ian Traynor, has explained: The pressing issue of Greece, for example, as weeks of a power vacuum fuel German exasperation and add to the sense that enough is enough - time for Greece to end its ill-advised sojourn in the single currency. The Germans and the Greeks have been the opposing poles in the euro crisis for more than two years. Nicolas Sarkozy hitched himself to Merkel and followed the German line. No one knows yet where Hollande stands, but the signs are he will favour flexibility over German stickling for the rules. On the broader national and European issues of recession, debt, and fiscal rigour, Hollande has been outspoken and blunt, campaigning as the anti-Sarkozy challenger to Germany's austerity prescriptions. Asked by French TV if he would arrive in Berlin bearing gifts, he replied: "The gift of growth, jobs, and economic activity." Merkel, by contrast, made clear she saw no reason to shift her position on the European debt dilemmas just because of a weekend election rout for her Christian Democrats. Hollande goes to Berlin on the first day of his presidency buoyed by a fresh and powerful mandate from the voters of France. Merkel, in office seven years and squaring up for a third term next year, looks diminished by the calamity on Sunday in the big state of North-Rhine Westphalia where her CDU slumped by 8 points to record its worst postwar performance there. 6.47pm: It's the most eagerly awaited dinner date on the international stage for some time, where the debate over growth versus austerity is expected to take centre-stage. Hours after taking over as France's president, François Hollande has arrived in Berlin for talks on Europe's debt crisis with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. In what many are hoping is not an ill-omen, the Falcon 7X aircraft which he boarded earlier was struck by lightning and had to return to the Villacoublay air base outside Paris as a precaution. Hollande and his entourage were transferred to another aircraft, a Falcon 900, and took off shortly thereafter. As the future of the Eurozone hangs in the balance, we're going to bring you full coverage of the first top level meeting between the two current leaders of the Eurozone's Franco-German engine.