EU leaders have agreed a common position on limiting bonus payments by banks.
Next week leaders of the 20 leading economies, including the EU, meet in Pittsburg to try and agree new regulations for the financial sector, including limits on pay and bonuses.
Swedish prime minister Frederick Reinfeld, the current holder of the EU presidency, said that the banks should not be able to take advantage of the current crisis to continue paying very large bonuses to staff.
He said it is not acceptable that banks take the gains of the economic recovery while taxpayers are left with the losses.
He said this was especially true at a time or rapidly rising unemployment, which is expected to reach 11% in the EU next year, a postwar record.
Mr Reinfeld said the EU would take a common position to the Pittsburg summit next week, and seek agreement with the US to rewrite the rules of global finance.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barosso said the aimof the G20 summit was a new world economic model for sustainable economic growth.
