Brussels, 27/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - Writing in the Financial Times of Wednesday 27 May, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a vigorous European response for growth. Beyond highlighting the current economic challenges, his call to British voters to turn out in strength on 4 June takes on the allure of an argument for European cooperation and, within this framework, strong commitment by the United Kingdom. “For me, the EU is not just a formal alliance: it is a daily commitment to work together on a range of economic, environmental and security issues,” Brown writes. Job creation in the United Kingdom and elsewhere “will depend on higher levels of cooperation between all members of the European Union,” he says, taking care, however, to avoid the term “coordination”, preferring cooperation among member states with the backing of institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB). The next stage in economic recovery must be “a strengthened European growth strategy” and he says, “I will be working with European leaders in advance of the European Council to advance on our decisions at the Group of 20 with a more focused Europe-wide strategy for growth”. “We now need to do more to mobilise the resources of the European Investment Bank and the European bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as those of the EU itself,” he want on to say, calling on the EIB to increase its lending to businesses for critical infrastructure projects by €50 billion over the next two years. Great Britain had to continue to be “a nation in Europe's mainstream and not in its slipstream,” he argued. (A.B./transl.rt)