European leaders are lobbying President Bush at the Camp David presidential retreat on Saturday to support a summit by end of 2008 that would craft ways to reform the world financial system.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso are trying to convince Bush that now is a good opportunity to tighten and better coordinate control of the financial markets, in response to the economic crisis that has shaken markets around the globe.

The president has backed the steps European nations have taken to stem the economic crisis, and is in favor of a meeting in the near future of the Group of Eight industrialised powers and other emerging economies like China and India. But the US hasn't signed on to the more ambitious, broad-stroke revisions that some European leaders like Sarkozy have in mind for the world financial system.

Sarkozy and Barroso are stopping at Camp David to meet with Bush on their way home from a summit in Canada.

On Friday, Sarkozy repeated his call to overhaul the global financial system so that it can be better supervised in the wake of the crisis.

"Together we need to rebuild a capitalism that is more respectful to man, more respectful to the planet, more respectful to future generations and be finished with a capitalism obsessed by the frantic search for short-term profit," Sarkozy said

Sarkozy and other European leaders want Bush and representatives of presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, to meet before the end of the year in New York and to forge a new vision for the global economy. Sarkozy has floated the idea of reforming rating agencies and even exploring the future of currency systems.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who engineered a British bank bailout that inspired US and European rescues is proposing radical changes to the global capitalist system, including a cross-border mechanism to monitor the world's 30 biggest financial institutions.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the Camp David meeting was not expected to produce any new policy decisions or the date or place for a planned meeting of leaders of major economic powers, the so-called G8. Instead, she said it would focus on efforts, extending as far back as April, on coordination for financial stability through measures such as bank disclosures, accounting rules at credit rating agencies, capital standards and asset valuation.