President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and European leaders want the crucial April 2 London Group of 20 summit to end in a spirit of unity – a plan bold enough to check and reverse the global economic crisis.

Yet a week ahead of the G-20 meeting, a fundamental difference in US and European priorities is intensifying in the public arena. The divide over the balance of stimulus and regulation reflects differences in Euro-American cultures, institutions, leadership – and not least, in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s concern about keeping voters happy ahead of September polls.

Whether the sides can hammer out an agreement – and how final decisions will be presented – is the trillion-dollar question.

A cacophony of top voices is rising. European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet opposes stimulus, as does the German finance minister, the British central bank chief, the European president, and others.

Those who support greater cash infusions as a solution to the crisis include the White House, Britain’s Mr. Brown, the heads of the IMF and World Bank, the Japanese prime minister, many nonofficial European economists, and Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman.

French prime minister François Fillon, asked Monday what a G-20 success would look like, said, “A decision on hedge funds and rating agencies … and a clear direction on accountancy rules and … offshore tax havens.”

But the Americans may want a lot more than that.

The US (joined by Japan and China) continues to back both stimulus and regulation, in that order, to save the interlinked global economies and keep banks solvent and lending. As World Bank President Robert Zoellick put it simply in Brussels this week, “We need stimulus to replace the fall in demand.”

Europeans, led by Germany and France, want to cap stimulus and emphasize regulation to halt toxic assets, end tax havens, and avoid printing money that could bring inflation, a deep psychic bugaboo in Europe.

In the German-French view, sealed by Chancellor Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a summit two weeks ago, public debt in the form of stimulus is premature. They say the eurozone is not in a monstrous crisis, and has adjustment mechanisms. Europe has coughed up more than €400 billion ($538 billion) in stimulus – including €50 billion ($67 billion) last week for the IMF, earmarked for a crisis in East and Central Europe.

“Merkel and Sarkozy are serious about defining the EU position; they are saying the Franco-German engine is back,” says Eloi Laurent, an economist at Sciences Po in Paris.

“The priority of the EU is to get the G-20 to work on financial regulation. It is a clear rebuttal to [US Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner and [White House economic adviser Larry] Summers.”

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