Charlie Rose Talks to Gordon Brown

How do you see where we are today, in terms of Europe’s debt crisis?
Europe has three problems, really, and none of them have been properly addressed. One is obviously the fiscal problem itself, the second is a banking problem, and the third is a growth and competitiveness problem. And unless you deal with each of these and deal with them as a group, you’re not going to get the recovery that’s necessary. Low growth will cause deficits to continue to be high.

So which problem should be the top priority?
You’ve got to deal with the three problems together. You need to have measures for growth that allow you to continue to reduce your deficits. One of the problems we face is that, with tough austerity in Greece and Spain and Portugal, growth is not recovering. Therefore, revenues become difficult to collect. We failed to understand that there’s a financial sector problem that’s got to be dealt with, and there’s a competitiveness problem. What should happen now is, first of all, the [European Financial Stability Facility] has got to be strengthened. You’ve got to send a message to the markets that Europe has come together to sort out this problem, and it’s going to create a firewall that is strong enough. You’ve then got to have a longer-term plan for reforming the euro.