Brown calls for 'grand bargain' to solve economic crisis

February 18, 2009

By Press Association

World leaders must strike a "grand bargain" to deal with the economic downturn, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today.

He called for co-operation on banking reform and fiscal stimulus packages as he outlined his hopes for the G20 summit of world leaders in London in April.


"From the discussions I have had and am about to have... I think we are fashioning for the future a global deal, a grand bargain, where each continent accepts its responsibilities and its obligations to act to deal with what is a global problem that can only be solved with a global solution," he told reporters.


The Prime Minister was speaking at his regular Downing Street press conference shortly after talks with International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank president Robert Zoellick.


He will meet European leaders in the coming days.







Mr Brown, who published a document setting out the Government's blueprint for the "Road To The London Summit", said: "America has just announced the biggest fiscal and monetary stimulus in the history of its country.

"Every part of the world must be part of the stimulus to the economy, giving support into the economy with investment, getting interest rates down as much as possible, and I believe one of the features of our discussions at the G20 summit on April 2 is how all countries can come together to do that.


"Some may have to do more on interest rates; some may have to do more fiscal stimulus. The whole point of the G20 is that the world must take action to deal with a global problem."


Co-operation would be required on a "regulatory transformation" of the banking system, including an end to tax havens, he said.





Mr Brown said he believed a "global new deal" was possible.

He said: "The old orthodoxies will not serve us well in the future. We've got to think the previously unthinkable, we've got to do what was previously undoable.


"The co-operation that's needed around the world is not something that has been achieved before - but I believe it can be achieved to meet the needs of our times."


The Prime Minister brushed aside the suggestion that he was tempted to become the "world's financial regulator".


He said: "There is no possibility anyway of a job called Global Financial Regulator. I want get on with the job I'm doing.


"My priority is to help people in this country who are facing problems with their mortgages, problems with their jobs and problems with small business finance."