I think the golden shares held by NW would certainly have some sort of influence here. It's a complex web but NW has these golden shares in CO, NW is 1/3 owned by KLM which is now part of Air France.

I can see the leverage being used to allow the merger but on the condition that the new merged airline stays in Skyteam which is/was the baby of AF. However this would leave Star with only US and they are trying to merge with Delta who are also Skyteam.

Potentially problematic for both Skyteam an Star Alliance.