LUXEMBOURG (MNI) – There will be “serious discussions” on the
financial transaction tax at today’s Ecofin meeting, Olli Rehn, European
Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on his way to the EU finance ministers’
meeting here, Rehn said that the Commission’s proposal from one year ago
will “form the basis of the discussions.”
“I regret that [the report] did not receive a more positive
response” when it was presented, he added.
The financial transaction tax remains controversial. “The
Netherlands is not in favour,” Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager
told reporters. “We are even a little bit reluctant towards the
introduction of it in other countries.”
Regarding the implementation of a single bank supervisor in the
Eurozone by the start of next year, Rehn called the date “ambitious” but
“doable”.
“Especially if all the member states and the Parliament work as
intensively as the European Commission worked during the summer recess,”
Rehn said.
De Jager said meeting the start-2013 deadline for launching the
bank supervisor would be “very difficult”, though he hoped for progress
at the Eurogroup meeting. He said talks on banking supervision should be
“not fixed on the calendar but fixed on the substance.”
— Frankfurt bureau: +49 69 720 142; email: frankfurt@mni-news.com —
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