Insight - The EU’s Tobin tax is being resurrected

As the EU’s 27 members move forward with a €750bil recovery fund to prop up those nations worst affected by the virus, they’ve given their blessing “in principle” to new EU-wide tax powers to beef up Brussels’s finances. A levy on financial transactions – as well as ones on digital services, carbon and plastic – will be considered.

WHEN the European Union (EU) first suggested a tax on financial transactions a decade ago, the idea was savaged by banking lobbyists and nixed by many of the bloc’s members.

The UK said it was “madness.” The initial ambition to raise up to €35bil (US$40.6bil) a year was reduced to a mere 3.5 billion euros, with only 10 countries agreeing to take part. As of last year, the project was barely alive.