Merkel gets warm welcome as EU leaders gather in Ypres

(YPRES) - A relaxed German Chancellor Angela Merkel worked the crowd in the small Belgian town of Ypres Thursday as European Union leaders met to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I.

Merkel, smiling for the cameras, was welcomed on the red carpet leading into Ypres' magnificent medieval cloth hall by EU president Herman Van Rompuy.

But rather than going straight into the meeting, Merkel crossed the town square to meet onlookers, who greeted her with a warm round of applause.

Shaking hands and exchanging a few words, the EU's most influential leader then returned to the cloth hall to join her peers for talks on who will take the top jobs in the bloc later this year.

Other leaders apparently decided not to follow in Merkel's footsteps, although they usually do.

The 28 leaders were later due to attend the symbolic centre-piece of their two-day summit, the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate.

The gate is an imposing memorial to some 55,000 British Commonwealth soldiers who died in the battlefields just outside Ypres and who disappeared into the Flanders mud without trace.