News

This Tuesday (7 September 2010), the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) will meet to forge a common EU position on a tax on financial transactions and on bank levies.



The Europeans For Financial Reform (EFFR) call on ECOFIN to ignore a paper drafted by Algirdas Semetas, European commissioner for tax affairs, dismissing feasibility of European Transaction tax. This document - which will be tabled at the Finance Ministers meeting - rejects the adoption of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) on purely ideological grounds. Moreover, "this dogmatic approach clearly runs counter to the position adopted by the European Parliament as well as to the results of many feasibility studies carried out by academics", said Philippe Lamberts, spokesperson of the European Green Party (EGP).

EFFR- a coalition of progressive forces, ranging from NGOs to Trade Unions and progressive politicians - are calling on the EU finance Ministers to agree to the adoption of both the FTT and bank levy, as they are interlinked.

Therefore, “a European, financial transaction tax (FTT) applied to all financial transactions would significantly curb speculation, and levies applied to banks would limit their excessive reliance on unstable sources of funding”, said John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

Besides their regulatory virtue, both proposed measures would ensure a fairer burden-sharing for the cost of the crisis and raise additional resources that are particularly needed in times of global economic downturn:

“We need now a European FTT that raises money to finance progressive recovery measures and that tackles purely speculative activities” said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President of the Party of European Socialists (PES).

“The critical question being asked is: why should ordinary people pay for a crisis that they did not cause? Alternatives exist, such as a financial-transaction tax” explained Prof. Josef Weidenholzer, President of Solidar..



The EFFR coalition calls on European leaders to face up to this challenge by keeping their G20 promises in order to ensure that financial markets serve the interest of European citizens.