Brussels - The European Union's executive is to approve Monday French and Austrian schemes to recapitalize troubled banks after it updated its own rules on state aid, a top official said.

The European Commission has adopted a new set of guidelines on how EU member states should be allowed to rescue banks hit by the credit crunch, and following the move, "the commission will adopt the French recapitalization scheme today ... and will shortly approve the Austrian scheme," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.

Kroes also hit back strongly at critics in some national capitals who had accused her of blocking their attempts to rescue their beleaguered financial sectors.

"I cannot accept every plan cobbled together on the back of a cocktail napkin and posted to Brussels ... (EU rules) should stop governments shooting themselves in the foot or their neighbours in the back," she said.

France unveiled a 10.5-billion-euro (13.3-billion-dollar) plan to bailout its six biggest banks on October 20. Austria drew up a 100- billion-euro scheme of bank guarantees and cash injections a day later.

In the French plan, the government subscribed to subordinated five- year debt issued by the six banks. In exchange, the French banks committed themselves to increasing their loans to individuals and companies by 3 to 4 per cent in 2009.

But the commission, which had already approved a similar British scheme in just 24 hours, argued that the French and Austrian schemes raised concerns about competition, and demanded that they be brought into line with EU competition rules. (dpa)