Gordon Brown is due to join fellow EU leaders for a summit over dinner in Brussels to shore-up solidarity about the next steps in tackling the economic crisis.
The aim is to secure a united EU front to present at a G20 gathering of major nations in Pittsburgh, US, in a fortnight.
G20 finance ministers meeting in London earlier this month agreed a range of ideas for curbing excessive bank bonuses.
They included spreading payments over years and making them conditional on economic performance, with compulsory clawback clauses and more transparency about bank sector high-end remuneration packages.
They also delivered their first concrete statement since the financial collapse began about possible "exit strategies" for when the crisis is over.
But both declarations masked differences between the UK and France over French demands to cap bonuses, and between the UK on one side and France and Germany on the other over the timing and scope of schemes for withdrawing the vast sums pumped into propping up ailing economies.
The three have displayed unity, nevertheless, on the need to introduce rules on hedge funds as part of a tightening of financial regulations in the wake of the crisis. And they hope a one-for-all EU approach will encourage US President Barack Obama and other world leaders to take steps to control bonuses and prevent backsliding on the need for change.
The problem for the EU - and for the G20 - is that countries are at different parts of the economic collapse cycle, and leaders are hard pressed to agree one set of global measures to help restore confidence in consumers and markets.
Mr Brown, who will host the Pittsburgh meeting in his current role as G20 chairman, held private talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Tuesday, saying afterwards that there had to be specific, detailed measures to tackle the problem of high-end bank remuneration.
However, he still opposes the flat-rate ceiling on bonuses favoured by France.
