Brussels, 15/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 October, before the opening of the European Council, Socialist prime ministers and main European leaders called on the Party of European Socialists (PES) to draw up joint proposals to regulate the European financial market. “The PES will take the initiative on a new roadmap for reforms on the European financial market creating new regulations,” said PES leader, Danish MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, following a meeting of European Socialist leaders in Brussels. “We have to avoid this economic slowdown moving into a longer recession period,” he added. The former Danish prime minister set out some of the guidelines for this roadmap, such as tougher laws to regulate the activities of all financial players: hedge funds, private equity funds, credit rating agencies and banks; and also the adoption of transparency standards, for example, on executives' remuneration packages, and greater capital requirements for investment funds. He also praised British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for showing Europe the way with his bank rescue plan. Unlike the US plan, Rasmussen said: “The Gordon Brown model is so relevant, because it does not take from banks their responsibility for handling the bad loan”. He said that that this initiative also meant that a final answer to Conservatives and Liberals: “Please. It's not your time any more. It's for the Social Democrats to come back”. (B.C./transl.rt)