EU: financial tax should be used for development aid and climate
European Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, is urging that the revenue from a proposed financial transaction tax should be set aside to fight poverty and climate change, as an investment against global instability. The tax “is a new source of financement and that should definitely be used not to close the gap but to close our unfilled promises,” said the commissioner.
The FTT is backed by 11 member states and would put 0.1 percent levy on bonds and shares and 0.01 percent on derivative products. Estimated generated annual revenues could range between €30 billion to €35 billion a year. Piebalgs said that the revenues could be used to make up for the shortfalls in funding from member states. France has already set aside existing national FTT revenue for development and Germany’s development minister Dirk Niebel has also spoken in favour of the idea. At the same time, Germany along with Italy are the two member states that have fallen the most behind in their commitments to set aside 0.7 percent of their GNI for development aid by 2015.
If the European Parliament backs the budget cuts, member states will have to increase their own development budgets, noted the commissioner.
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