Tag: financial transaction tax

European finance ministers are set for a spat today over the extent to which the financial transactions tax (FTT) – strongly backed by France and Germany – should be pushed on the EU agenda.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned yesterday (9 January) that Greece must make rapid progress on its second rescue package – including a voluntary write-down on its public debt held by private creditors – before it receives further EU aid.

The European Parliament may exempt pension funds from a draft proposal to tax a wide variety of financial transactions, the head of the legislature’s committee for financial regulation said yesterday (8 November).

The European Commission officially presented its proposal for a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) yesterday (28 September), to the acclaim of the European Parliament's largest political groups, trade unions and development NGOs. The business community and British Conservatives were among those who voiced their opposition in the absence of a global FTT.

France and Germany are piling more pressure on the European Union to approve a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), a measure that is met with huge resistance by many governments, economists and the financial industry. 

The European Union will push for the adoption of a financial transactions tax at a summit of the world's 20 biggest economies, the G20, in November, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said on Wednesday (31 August).

A financial transaction tax is needed to repair the damage of the financial crisis, which has cost millions in jobs, and the money should be used to invest in low-carbon growth and employment, said Bernadette Ségol, the newly-appointed secretary-general of the European Trade Union Confederation, in an interview with EurActiv. 

The EU is cooking up a plan to tax financial transactions. Many economists are building up a body of evidence in favour of a financial transaction tax (FTT). EurActiv speaks to one such economist, Stephan Schulmeister, who makes an impressive case for the unpopular tax.

A draft European Commission wish-list for the November G20 summit in Seoul no longer puts financial taxes on the agenda, according to an internal note seen by EurActiv, which will be discussed today (19 October) by the College of Commissioners.

EU economy ministers and the European Commission differ on how to rescue defaulting banks in the future, as ministers in favour of a bank levy yesterday (7 September) rejected the idea of putting the fiscal proceeds into a special fund to wind down insolvent banks.

As EU citizens lose faith in their leaders' resolve to make the financial sector pay for the damage it has caused, the case for implementing a financial transaction tax (FTT) ''could not be stronger,'' argues ex-investment banker Sony Kapoor, managing director of think-tank Re-Define and an advisor to several G20 governments and the European Parliament, in an op-ed for EurActiv.