Out of a “desire to ensure that the financial sector fairly
and substantially contributes to the costs of the crisis and that [the sector]
is taxed in a fair way [relative to] other sectors for the future, to disincentivise
excessively risky activities by financial institutions, [and] to complement
regulatory measures aimed at avoiding future crises and to generate additional
revenue for general budgets or specific policy purposes,” the Council of the
European Union took a decision on 14 January 2013 to allow 11 states, including
Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy, to act in a coordinated fashion with the
Commission and each other in establishing and administrating a tax on financial
transactions. That is to say, the tax is to be jointly administered by the
Commission and the states, and both levels would share in the proceeds. A few
states, most notably Britain and the Czech Republic, abstained in the voting.
The full essay is at Essays on the E.U. Political Economy, available at Amazon.
