DUBLIN : Europe’s Elite Meet

Leaders of the 12 European Community countries meet in the Irish capital Saturday to give their formal blessing to German reunification and sort out some of the problems it raises for their planned economic integration.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Francois Mitterrand say the best course now is to move more aggressively toward full political union in Western Europe, and that’s the line they’ll be pushing in Dublin.

But they’re sure to face resistance from Britain’s “Iron Lady,” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who is fiercely protective of her country’s national identity and who calls the idea of formal European political union “esoteric.”