The European Union is seeking a meeting with Mr Paul Wolfowitz, the US administration's choice for president of the World Bank.
"We are asking Mr Wolfowitz to come down to explain what he wants to do concerning certain points," Luxembourg Economics Minister Jeannot Krecke said last night. "It should be before the 31st."
"There is some concern about the way Mr Wolfowitz intends to handle the policy of the World Bank," he told journalists on the sidelines of an EU summit.
The nomination of the US deputy defence secretary to succeed James Wolfensohn as World Bank president has been criticised by some in Europe because of Wolfowitz's role as architect of the Iraq war.
More than 1,300 European aid organisations have put their names to a statement voicing "strong concern" about Wolfowitz's nomination. "We fear his appointment risks the bank becoming seen as a tool of the current controversial US foreign policy," the statement said.
But other finance ministers indicated the EU was unlikely to block his appointment, which comes at a time when the Europeans are seeking U.S. backing for former EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy's bid to head the World Trade Organisation.
"I would like to say that if you can't get the one you love, you have to love the one you can get," said Swedish Finance Minister Par Nuder on his way into the summit.
After the meeting, Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm said: "Some countries already know what they are going to do, and some countries will wait until these talks have taken place.
"I did not see any very negative attitudes so I think he is taken as a very serious candidate," Zalm added.
Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser noted the U.S. expected Europe to back Wolfowitz in return for its support of a European head of the International Monetary Fund.
He added, however: "We should not automatically send the signal that Europe and the United States are dividing the international financial institutions between them."