One of the ECB's biggest complaints on the economy is the lack of structural reforms. Europe's answer is to find an appropriate shortcut

The Financial Transaction Tax is at the top of the agenda at the latest Eurogroup meeting

As usual there's many differing views and the talking heads have been banging on about it today also

Yesterday Austria's Shelling thought that they we're close to a deal but still some obstacles remain. Today he said that 10 nations agree on the features of the FTT

France's Sapin says he wants a broad based tax but that some markets should be excluded

Italy's Padoan says more countries could be added as it moves forward

Luxembourg's Gramegna says that the 10 nation statement must become legal text but must comply with EU laws and must proceed with caution given UK views

UK's Osborne say the 10 nation statement is not an official proposal and the UK will take the plan to court if the impacts are unforeseen

Dutchman Dijsselbloem says the FTT needs more studying for extraterritorial effects and that the potential impact is political and not just legal

Shelling reports that Estonia have dropped out of FTT talks

The FTT has far reaching effects and the biggest will be increased costs to firms that will get passed down to the likes of us. It will also hit those countries that have the lions share of transactions, the UK being one. Liquidity could be one area that takes a hit if firms scale down operations that the deem not cost effective due to the new taxes.

The bigger issue is that the FTT is a quick money making scheme hidden behind raising money from the nasty banks to cover any future problems. There's not many who can argue with that premiss but only if you believe that Europe will use the money for that and not spunk it up the wall on something else. There's also the fact that this is an easy political option rather than undertaking important structural reforms to fix their individual economies. Leading up to and over the crisis, governments were just as complicit in mismanagement of their responsibilities as the banks, yet we don't see many governments paying for it in monetary terms

The FTT has been watered down somewhat from the blood and thunder proposals trumpeted at the height of the crisis. There's plenty of details still to be thrashed out but this is a subject that's going to affect us all in the trading world