Finance

Finance

UK protests the application of European-wide financial transaction tax

09 January 2012 07:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday he would veto a European-wide financial transaction tax unless it was adopted globally, deepening a confrontation with European Union heavyweights France and Germany, APA reports quoting Reuters.

He said France should be free to go it alone and introduce a financial transactions tax if it wished.

Paris and Berlin want an EU-wide tax on financial transactions but Britain is resisting, fearing it will damage the City of London, a global financial centre where much of the tax would be raised.

Cameron’s threat to block the tax comes after he angered EU partners last month by vetoing a new EU treaty on greater fiscal integration in the euro zone, aimed at defusing the euro debt crisis. Critics said his move risked leaving Britain isolated from the EU’s 26 other members.

"The idea of a new European tax, when you’re not going to have that tax put in place in other places, I don’t think is sensible and so I will block it," Cameron told the BBC.

"Unless the rest of the world all agreed at the same time that we are all going to have some sort of tax then we are not going to go ahead with it," he said.

EU-wide tax measures need approval from all 27 member states.