Schaeuble Goes Global to Salvage Financial Transaction Tax
- EU finance ministers discussed levy at meeting in Bratislava
- Austria’s Schelling says decision on EU tax needed in October
This article is for subscribers only.
After five years of fruitless talks on a European financial-transaction tax, frustrated policy makers including Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble are talking up the prospect of a global levy that would make sure banks pay their fair share.
If the plan sounds familiar, that’s because European Union leaders tried to sell it to their partners in the Group of 20 nations in 2011 and got shot down. Since then, Schaeuble and others have spent countless hours debating first a tax for the whole EU, then a scaled-down levy in 10 countries led by Germany and France.