FTT's death?

In the wake of many attacks in the last few days saying that the "FTT

legislation in Europe has been gutted" and that "the 11 countries can't

agree and it's falling apart" - to all these stories, it would be good

to respond with the line 'that reports of the FTT's death have been

greatly exaggerated'.

Concretely, one of our key FTT people in Brussels says that talk of

watering down in terms of rates of the tax cannot be true since the ECP

countries have agreed in their discussions that 'any talk of rates has

been postponed'. There is no meat on this "drastic"

compromise story or the "FTT has been gutted" line - it's spin, its

wishful thinking, its what the sector would like to believe and they

think if they say it loudly enough and say it enough times then it will

become true.

The fact is that we should expect them to be making quite a song and

dance right now, it is after all a multi-billion tax on the financial

sector.

Tax Commissioner Semeta said today in answer to these sensationalist

stories:

"It's normal in the first reading that member states go through the

proposal article by article and the commission explains what each

provision means … I see these news reports as an attempt to create a

sensation. They do not reflect what is currently going on in the [EU]

Council," he added. See EU Observer story here:

Yes we have a fight on our hands, but first let's not believe or be

worried by their spin and second let's fight back.