EU Parliament gives green light on financial transaction tax

Eleven EU countries planning to introduce a financial transaction tax (FTT) won approval from the European Parliament on Wednesday. Members of the European Parliament have long advocated an FTT to make financial market players take more responsibility for resolving the crisis that they caused and to discourage excessive risk-taking in future, said an EP statement, The EP resolution was adopted by 533 votes to 91, with 32 abstentions. It stresses that the ultimate goal should still be a worldwide FTT, and urges the EU to continue campaigning for it. The 11 participating countries are Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. They account for about 90 percent of Eurozone GDP. Having obtained Parliament's consent, the EU Council now needs to get a majority vote to allow the European Commission to initiate enhanced cooperation in order to turn the FTT plans into reality, noted the statement. The EU Council represents the governments of the 27 member states while the European Commission is the executive body of the EU.