EU leaders agree on reforms - Brown - News in brief

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Mr Brown said G8 finance ministers would take forward proposals to change the way credit agencies assessed the risk posed by banks and for greater transparency in information published by banks themselves.

The Prime Minister was speaking after a Downing Street summit with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Italy's caretaker premier Romano Prodi and EU Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. He told reporters: "We are calling for greater transparency to secure better informed markets."

Mr Brown went on: "By calling for change in the international institutions we are leading the way for changes that can be made in the course of the year. I am confident we are leading the way for consensus that can be made for big change."

And he warned: "We stand ready to take regulatory action if progress is not made."

The premier added: "We also agreed to action within Europe in response to financial crises."

He said there needed to be "common principles" guiding international financial management.

Mr Brown's comments were echoed by Mr Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel who repeated his determination to take regulatory action if reforms were not forthcoming.

The Prime Minister also repeated his suggestion that the International Monetary Fund should take on an additional "early warning" system to head off crises such as the Northern Rock bank collapse.

And he told reporters: "We have agreed a common understanding of the problems we face, a common course of actions to deal with these problems. We will now engage with our G8 partners on all these issues, starting next week with a meeting of the G8 finance ministers in Japan."