MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK's Brown calls for a “grand bargain” at next G-20 summit

Prime Minister Gordon Brown

World leaders must strike a “grand bargain” to deal with the economic downturn, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday. He called for more cooperation 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. Prime Minister made the announcement 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. Mr Brown said he believed a "global new deal" was possible. "The old orthodoxies will not serve us well in the future," he said. "We've got to think the previously unthinkable; we've got to do what was previously undoable." Mr Brown said there would only be a "very limited" chance of challenging the bonuses still being paid by the majority state-owned RBS bank. It was announced that the bank, which is propped up by £20 billion of state support, would reduce cash bonus payments by 90% to £175 million this year. Chancellor Alistair Darling has said the agreed bonuses were the "absolute legal minimum" the bank was contractually obliged to pay staff. Mr Brown told reporters: "It wasn't our choice to draw up these contracts; it wasn't our choice to enter into these legal obligations. But we have got to accept that the chances of taking action in a court of law would be very limited indeed." He had earlier warned other bailed-out banks would be subject to the same bonus crackdown.