The German and French leaders on Monday launched a push for the upcoming Group of 20 summit to agree on action to control bankers' bonuses, declaring that doing so is a question of credibility.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has urged other countries to follow France's example and limit bonuses handed out to bank traders to avoid the kind of risk-taking blamed for fueling the financial crisis.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed to German calls for payment of top managers' bonuses to be delayed for four years in order to be sure that they actually reward success.
"We believe that, from the combination of these proposals, an international community should emerge that deals similarly with bonus payments," Merkel told a joint news conference.
The G-20 leaders meet in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24-25, and the German leader said that "this opportunity must not be missed."
She pointed to signs that some banks are beginning to behave similarly to the way they did before the crisis, and said a repeat must be prevented — "otherwise, there is a major problem for the credibility of political action."
Paris and Berlin want to "put an end to the scandal of bonuses," Sarkozy said.
"We want things to change in Pittsburgh — and for the international community to understand that the speculative and financial excesses that led to the crisis cannot resume as if nothing had happened," he added.
Sarkozy said Germany and France would act on bonuses in any case. "At that point, everyone will have to assume their responsibility before international public opinion — particularly those who do not want to make the same effort at regulation that Germany and France are making."
Merkel and Sarkozy joined forces at the last G-20 summit, in London in April, to call for action against tax havens. The meeting paved the way for a black list of uncooperative countries.
"We want to make things move together in Pittsburgh the way we made them move in London on tax havens," Sarkozy said.
The two countries are also calling on the Pittsburgh summit to come up with measures to limit the risk of governments having to intervene to prevent banks collapsing.
Merkel said agreement is needed on "what regulations we can make so that we are not again surprised one day, with a bank telling us: 'either the state helps in the next 12 hours or we will bring down the whole financial system.'"
One possibility would be an agreement on a standard assessment of the value of banks' risky business, she said. The higher the level of that business, the more equity of their own banks would have to set aside to cover the potential risks.
Merkel is to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, another key G-20 leader whose country also favors finding a way to limit bonuses, in Berlin next Sunday.