France wants FTT in place before the end of the year

25 September 2012

French European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that Paris hopes to clinch an agreement before the end of the year to launch an 'enhanced cooperation' mechanism allowing a small group of at least nine EU countries to move forward on a financial transaction tax.

The French minister-delegate for European affairs admitted that the minimum number of countries had not been reached to launch and "enchanced cooperation" on the FTT, which his government strongly supports. The minister explained that France's objective was "to hit two targets with only one gun" – namely having a strong EU budget as an aggregate of national contributions, and ensuring that countries keep strict budget balances. That’s why France was keen on supplementing the EU budget with “own resources”, he said.

Germany and France, the main proponents of tax convergence, first pushed for EU-wide implementation from the beginning of 2014, but then agreed to resort to the enhanced cooperation mechanism. In this case, France wants to introduce the FTT this year.

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