Act now to avert next crisis, Brown tells leaders

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Arriving in Brussels for an EU summit dominated by the financial meltdown, the Prime Minister told the Evening Standard it was vital to lay down tough new rules and regulations for the future.

"This is not a time for dealing just with the current crisis but also preventing the next," he said.

"That's why we must also discuss the next steps that we must now take to transform our financial institutions."

Mr Brown was missing this afternoon's Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons to squeeze in a series of private meetings with other European leaders.

Arriving early, he went straight into talks with EC president Jose Manuel Barroso about forging a common EU stance. He then had meetings with the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark before the main summit began, fitting in a lunch with European Socialist leaders in between.

Leaders of the 27 member states were expected to endorse a unique £1.5 trillion banking bail-out, co-ordinated across the EU but largely based on Mr Brown's £500 billion rescue of British banks.

The success of the blueprint, which Mr Barroso has even referred to as "the Brown plan" despite the summit being chaired by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, has hugely improved Mr Brown's status in Brussels, and prompted feverish speculation in France and Germany that he has become a "born again European".

Mr Brown aims to capitalise on the mood by pushing his vision of a "stage 2" of reforms designed to establish a new world order.

He was asking the other leaders to agree a statement backing five principles, including greater transparency, integrity, sound banking practices and global networks of supervision.