Brussels  - As the global economic emergency recedes, corporate greed is back.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that French banking giant BNP Paribas was setting aside 1 billion euros (1.43 billion dollars) to pay out banker bonuses, despite receiving 5 billion euros in state aid.

Then came the news that the Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent owned by the British Treasury, had poached a prominent trader from Merrill Lynch thanks to an irresistable 7-million-pound (11.4-million-dollar) offer.

Already alarmed by surging unemployment and the prospect of social unrest in the autumn, Europe's politicians are not impressed.

Casting themselves as the paladins of Joe Taxpayer, they are now turning the heat on such excesses ahead of a crucial Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh, on September 24-25.

One of the first to do so was President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, where the backlash against bankers' bonuses has been particularly fierce.

On Tuesday, he told the country's top bankers that he wanted to curb their bonuses in a bid to deter the kind of excessive risk- taking that has been blamed for the global financial crisis.

His plan involves staggering bonuses over a three-year period, converting at least one-third of them in shares and making them subject to performance criteria.

Sarkozy later said he would be pushing the issue at the Pittsburgh summit.

"I don't see why this question should be taboo in Pittsburgh," he said.

The French president appears to enjoy the backing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is eager to entice voters ahead of a general election scheduled for the end of September.

"Bonuses will be a central issue (in Pittsburgh) because it is irritating that some banks are continuing almost exactly as in the past," she said in a television interview this week.

But banker-bashing is not just a prerogative of Europe's conservatives.

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, a Social-Democrat, said earlier this month that "There shouldn't be any more excessive pay and false incentives for exaggerated risk. So it's right for banking regulators to be putting the spotlight on payment rules."

Spain's socialist premier, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, also wants "ethics" to return to the world of finance by linking bonuses to an institution's long-term performance and subject to approval by minority shareholders.

And on Tuesday, Adair Turner, an economist who heads Britain's financial watchdog, stirred the City of London by backing a new tax on financial transactions designed to dent banks' profits and thereby reduce the funds available for bonuses.

Worried about a return to "business as usual" as banking balance sheets return in the black, the head of the Financial Services Authority also wants proceeds of such a tax to help fund the developing world.

The proposal has already been rejected by the British Bankers' Association (BBA), which has said it would jeopardize Britain's position as the "top centre in the world for global banking."

"If we introduce the wrong kind of regulation or the wrong kind of taxes we could so easily lose that position by driving business abroad," said Brian Capon, spokesman for the BBA.

However, political pressure is beginning to pay off. BNP Paribas, for instance, has since announced that it would be slashing its planned bonuses by half this year.

In any case, Europe's leaders know that for any of their proposals to work, they should be endorsed at the widest possible level.

And it is for this reason that the Pittsburgh meeting, whose participants will represent around 90 per cent of global gross national product and 80 per cent of world trade, is so crucial.

But first, Europe must overcome its divisions.

The European Union's Swedish presidency is expected to convene an extraordinary summit on September 17 in a bid to iron out any differences among the bloc's 27 leaders ahead of the Pittsburgh gathering.

Before that, EU finance ministers will have an opportunity to address the bonuses' hot potato at an informal lunch scheduled to take place in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats said.

Sarkozy and Merkel's latest headline-grabbing ideas on the subject are met with "told-you-so" looks by European Commission officials.

The EU executive first formulated proposals on corporate bonuses as far back as 2004, but only the Netherlands expressed an interest at the time.

In March of this year, the commission published data showing that many of Europe's chief executive officers had enjoyed ballooning salaries between 2003 and 2007, with average bonuses surging from an equivalent of 70 per cent of their base salaries to 151 per cent.

The study was followed by a recommendation in April that bonuses be linked to the long-term performance of a company.

And on July 13, Brussels again made its voice heard by suggesting that national supervisors be able to review banks' remuneration policies and impose sanctions on payment schemes that reward excessive risk-taking.

"Our first proposals (on bonuses) date back to the end of 2004. Unfortunately, at the time, almost nobody paid attention to them," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Thursday.

"I am very happy that some leaders are now paying attention to them," Barroso said. (dpa)