Ten countries of the European Union have signed the political commitment to define the precise contents of the Tobin Tax, the taxation on share transactions and "certain derivatives", not yet specified. The signatories were Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. Slovenia, on the other hand, has not made any commitments, not because it has withdrawn from the "enhanced cooperation" on Tobin, but because it is in the midst of a government crisis.
The ten countries admitted that it will be "necessary to do further technical work", but agreed that the Tobin Tax will come into effect "at the latest on 2016 January XNUMX" and will have a "progressive" implementation, initially focused on trading of shares and of some derivative products. Nothing is known about the next steps yet.
The short document published today does not contain any reference to the contents of the Tobin Tax, but merely cites the European Commission's proposal of February 2013, which provided for a levy of 0,1% on trading of shares and 0,01% on derivatives .
The ten countries underline their commitment to "take into account" the concerns of EU countries that do not participate in the Tobin Tax, including the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. On the other hand, the French and German governments have pushed in recent weeks to arrive at this public commitment before the European vote in order to give a political response to the concerns of public opinion about what is considered an excessive imbalance in favor of the of the banks helped massively in the years of the great crisis.
