The leaders of Europe's three largest nations, Britain, France and Germany, yesterday issued a joint call for “binding rules” to rein in bankers' bonuses as the finance ministers of the G20 group of nations prepared to meet in London this weekend.

The joint letter from the UK's Gordon Brown, Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Nicolas Sarkozy signals that Europe is uniting behind specific proposals to link the size of bonuses to fixed pay and to bank performance over long periods of time. The three leaders also came out in favour of deferring awards and claw-backs in case of negative outcomes.

The move comes at a time when anti-banker sentiment is running high and is designed to put pressure on the US and other big nations to come up with workable proposals.