Owen Tudor

The Financial Times reported today that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while pushing for substantial cuts in the German public deficit, would also be seeking a European-level financial transactions tax (FTT) by 2012. This demonstrates that the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in South Korea last week may have reduced the chances of getting a global tax, but has simultaneously made a European tax more likely. The UK’s coalition government is committed to a unilateral bank levy, and the Belgians who are taking over the Presidency at the end of this month (along with the Austrians) are also already committed to a European FTT.