Gordon Brown slams Greek bailout – and warns Europe over austerity

In an article for the Washington Post entitled “Europe’s shortsighted response to a worsening fiscal reality“, Gordon Brown has hit out at German-led austerity in Europe, lambasting:

“policies that the whole world can see have already failed.”

In fact, Brown goes further still in tackling head on the central argument around austerity – that any failings that arise from austerity are because there isn’t enough austerity:

“the unfolding tragedy of a bankrupt Greece is only a symptom of an even more fundamental miscalculation: a wrong-headed conviction, widely held across Europe, that if austerity is failing, it is because there is not enough of it.”

His prognosis for Europe as a whole is bleak. As he discusses a global shift towards emerging economies, he warns European leaders that:

“What Europe is experiencing may prove to be a permanent and irrevocable loss of prosperity.”

You can read the full article here.