Germany and France will ask the European Commission to consider a European financial market transaction tax after the plan for it to be introduced worldwide was largely dismissed by the G20.
"In the next few days I will, together with my French colleague, call upon the European Commission to submit proposals on a measure for a financial transaction tax," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, today.
Schaeuble said that if the tax could not be agreed at a European-wide level, consideration would be given to the possibility of a euro zone transaction tax.
Sweden brought in a similar tax in the 1980s but it was scrapped after six years because it pushed businesses to carry out their transactions elsewhere.
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