EU leaders are using the financial transaction tax to hide a Spanish-led revolt against Germany
You can always tell when European leaders are rattled: the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) races to the top of the agenda.
By Louise Armitstead
TelegraphUK
13 Mar 2012
Love it or hate it, a 0.01pc levy on transactions made by banks is entirely irrelevant to solving the advancing debt crisis.
So why – with Greece’s €130bn bail-out signed but probably inadequate and a raft of sinner states teetering under their debt loads – have European leaders said today’s summit in Brussels will focus on a bank tax?
Summit groupies will have seen this before: it can mean leaders have reached deadlock, need more time – and almost always that they need to butter up the northern European electorate.
In the face of any hurdle the FTT is the technocrats’ boxing ticking dream: look busy; raise money; smack banks; tackle a complex, cross-border issue; and kick over-achieving London while you’re at it.
So what are they hiding this time? In a word Spain. In a few words, the stirings of a radical retaliation of “sinner states” against the German-led imposition of austerity and central rule.
The Rest…HERE
