Defence merger - conspiracy or coincidence?

Should Britain allow its Defence Industries to be foreign-owned?
It's a question that, not so long ago, would have elicited a  robust response involving two fingers accompanied by two words, the second of which would have been OFF.
That was in the days before successive governments sat back as key utilities such as water and power slipped into foreign ownership. Currently, UK utilities are owned by Australian, US French and German companies to name just a few.  
Is this important? After all, the conventional wisdom is that  the only way for Great Britain to "punch above its weight" ( has their ever been a more fatuous and patronising expression, by the way?) is to accept and embrace foreign ownership as an inevitable result of Globalisation; which, as we are all constantly told, is never less than a force for good and a sovereign boon to Mankind.
Hmmmm. EDF (Electricite de France)is one of our largest energy suppliers. Its majority shareholder is, and will always be, the French Government. If you believe that is not significant try comparing EDF electricity prices in France and Great Britain. Alternatively, look what happened to gas prices here, compared to Germany, when the Russians threatened to turn off the taps a couple of years ago. 
History demonstrates that once British companies are foreign-owned, whether through takeover or - the preferred term - merger, and the owners are forced to cut jobs or investment because of a fall-off in demand, they invariably choose to make them  somewhere other than their home market. 
Which brings us, albeit circuitously, to the proposed merger of Bae and the Franco-Germa-Iberian company  EADS, perhaps better known as Airbus. 
There has been plenty of Press reaction to this proposed tie-up, most of it split along the usual partisan lines. Generally-speaking, the anti EU Mail, Telegraph and Express were against the idea while the Europhile Independent and the Guardian were, equally predictably, not so against it. No surprises there. 
Just before news of this proposed merger ( we get 40% and they get 60% but, somehow, this still constitutes a merger?) broke and dominated the headlines, slightly less ink was expended reporting a meeting of many of the EU's leading and lesser lights at which one of the topics discussed was, Taddah!!!, the future of the European Defence Industry and, ancillary to this, the development of a fully-fledged EU Army which would become the main beneficiary of the output of said European Defence Industry. Both of these developments, by the way, would also underpin the rapid growth of the EU Foreign Office ( for want of a better expression) under Baroness Ashton which is rapidly usurping or challenging UK embassies in key parts of the world. And, as Manuel Barosso, the totally un-elected President of the bits of the EU that Van Rompuy doesn't lay claim to be President of, said, it would accelerate the whole process of Federal integration which every body - except the British , Dutch, German, Swedish, Greek and Czech electorates - is gagging to see happen as soon as possible. 
Now, back to the original question: is the fact that this Conference on this topic was rapidly followed by the Bae/EADS merger proposal a coincidence? 
If not, is it simply the next step in the propaganda process whereby politicians and officials seek to convince the British public that integration into Greater Europe is so inevitable that it is pointless thinking of trying to succeed in the great big world without the security and comfort of the EU blanket wrapped around us?