The Guardian; EU leaders order banks to tighten regulatory regime - by # Will Woodward, Patrick Wintour and Ian Traynor

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EU leaders order banks to tighten regulatory regime - by Will Woodward, Patrick Wintour and Ian Traynor

A meeting of EU leaders chaired by Gordon Brown in London last night warned banks and other financial institutions to reform in order to retain confidence in free markets and avert any prospect of the return of protectionism. In Brown's first big European initiative since becoming prime minister, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel, acting Italian prime minister Romano Prodi and EU president José Manuel Barroso joined him for talks in Downing Street to demand increased transparency and regulation in the face of the global credit crunch. In a short, good-natured press conference held between talks and dinner at the Foreign Office, the leaders voiced similar opinions. "There is nothing fatalistic about what is happening now," Sarkozy told reporters in more direct language than the other leaders.