EU Commission backs 10 euro zone states' financial transaction tax http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/23/us-eu-tax-idUSBRE89M0JY20121023 Looks like Estonia has backed off for now at least. The Estonian FM had previously said there wasn't much clarity or enthusiasm for the idea.
Foresight Project Final Project Report http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/foresi...puter-trading-in-financial-markets-report.pdf
An application to proceed with the FTT under the âenhanced cooperationâ procedure can be successful if: At least 9 out of 27 Member States want to move forward under enhanced cooperation; 14 out of 27 Member States vote in favour; and The combined number of votes of these 14 countries is at least 255 out of 345 votes. So those ten member states have now confirmed their willingness to move forward under enhanced cooperation. The Commission should receive support from up to 11 countries representing around 175 votes. We wait for Estonia to make its mind up. This means that for enhanced cooperation (255 votes) there is a shortfall of 80 votes and at least three other Member States are required. Based on recent statements from the EU's 27 finance ministers, the shortfall is met - given that five other member states have indicated they will vote in favour of the bid for enhanced cooperation. These are: the UK (29 votes)!!!!!!!; Poland (27 votes); Hungary (12 votes) Czech Republic (12 votes) Malta (3 votes) These five countries together represent 83 votes, meaning that the threshold for enhanced cooperation of 255 votes would be met. The Cypriot Presidency has confirmed that the vote will take place on 13 November at the ECOFIN meeting of Finance Ministers. http://conservativehome.blogs.com/p...ahead-with-the-financial-transaction-tax.html
A spokesman for the Treasury was critical of the plan by the 10 countries. "We've consistently said the UK will not participate in an EU FTT," he said. "As with an EU-wide FTT, a FTT amongst a smaller number of EU countries would still have damaging impacts on growth, jobs and financial activity in the EU. "It would increase costs for pensions, for manufacturers. It could conceivably distort competition and fragment the single market. "We are, however, not minded to block others from creating a FTT using the enhanced co-operation procedure, but before taking a firm view the UK would need to fully consider the scope of the new proposal and what the revenues would be used for." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20041588
Heres how the QMV votes currently stack up, the 10 have 171 votes, they need 255 to pass FTT via enhanced co operation. Code: Germany 29 United Kingdom 29 France 29 Italy 29 Spain 27 Poland 27 Romania 14 Netherlands 13 Greece 12 Czech Republic 12 Belgium 12 Hungary 12 Portugal 12 Sweden 10 Austria 10 Bulgaria 10 Sweden 10 Slovakia 7 Denmark 7 Finland 7 Ireland 7 Lithuania 7 Latvia 4 Slovenia 4 Estonia 4 Cyprus 4 Luxembourg 4 Malta 3 184 171
At the ECOFIN meeting in June, Finance Ministers from the UK, Sweden and Denmark all said they opposed an EU-FTT, but would not block an EC-FTT as long as there was no extraterritorial reach.
Exactly. If this 'new' enhanced cooperation ftt proposal contains any hint of extraterritorial reach then the UK and others would be very stupid to sign on. I'm really not sure they should sign on anyway but I guess we'll see.