Gordon Brown: ECB bond buying plan doesn't go far enough An uncompetitive European south which has failed to engage in structural reforms will inevitably fall further behind. So Europe in 2012 is facing the same problems of financial weakness, economic frailty and worsening debt which have trapped Japan for nearly 25 years," he said. With German growth stalling, we could be stuck in economic "quagmire" and suggests that the loans from central bankers last week serve only as a "band-aid" unless followed by plans for growth, he added. Mr Brown also said that "the ECB still has to address the moral hazard it has created by appearing to guarantee "last resort" funding to countries still likely to go off track." In his blog, the advisor to the World Economic Forum showed his support of a European banking union with a single regulator for all euro-zone banks, but said that it would not be possible to implement without a fiscal union. A banking union requires more than common euro-wide supervision. It requires also a common resolution fund and common deposit insurance, and these in turn require an agreement to fiscal transfers," he said.