anchor: melinda crane has been covering it for us. the cooperation is typically seen as driving european unity. >> a lot more smoothly than it had been during the initial phase of the president he. you heard those unusually warm words there from the president saying there was an atmosphere of brotherly affection. the chancellor explained it quite directly saying we have been put to the test in the last few months and it has brought us closer. they stood shoulder to shoulder. also, the political tests. dealing with the greek debt crisis. they have been consulting very closely in a bilateral framework for speaking to us. anchor: they flew together to try to get the minsk agreement up and working. so there is a great deal more concrete cooperation. what are the leaders come up with for the future? >> the joint cabinet meetings were military and defense. they were planning to cooperate in funding and earth satellite observation system and also funding a new drone together with italy. there has been a lot of talk about european defense coo

. >> melinda crane has been following those talks and joins us now from the parliamentary studios. our angela merkel and poroshenko on the same page what comes to dealing with the crisis? >> they appear to be at the press conference today, but it took them some time to get there. the talks were extended by one hour and both sides described the discussions as intensive. basically, if there are some differences at least in new wants they pertain both to skepticism about the degree to which the cease-fire is working and also the degree to which additional pressure should be placed on russia going into the talks over the weekend the president told german media that he thinks that it is not working, however at the press conference it look like the chancellor had persuaded him to at least stay with it for a while because he said in fact that there was no alternative. the chancellor, for her part admitted that there were big gaps particularly with regards to the degree in which it can be confirmed that pro-russian separatists have been with drawing heavy weaponry as promised and she said