Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-23-Speech-3-038-000"
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"en.20120523.3.3-038-000"2
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"Mr President, picture a Spanish home buyer paying an extra EUR 2 000 on an average mortgage, a German pensioner losing 4% return on his equity options investments and a French SME facing a 90% cost increase for foreign-exchanged hedging. I am not describing the consequences of predatory bank practices or an external economic shock. I am simply illustrating what proponents of a European FTT are willing to inflict on their own constituents in pursuit of a misguided attempt to make someone, anyone, pay for the financial crisis of 2008. It is no secret that the UK stands to lose the most from the imposition of such a tax, but I am not here to argue against the FTT as a Brit, but as a European concerned about the welfare of our economy, and the future wealth of European citizens.
Ever since this tax’s inception, the discussion around the FTT has not been an objective, evidence-based one. Instead, the Commission, and some in this Parliament, have pretended that the effects of the tax would be negligible, when they are not, that the tax would be just, when it is not, and that it would be internationally viable, when, thankfully, it is not. It is high time that we were honest about the true detrimental effects of this tax on European savers, the European economy and, in fact, financial stability.
These are dire economic times and we have an awful lot of work still to do before we can rightfully claim to have made financial markets safer and more beneficial to the real economy. Making our voters believe, however, that this tax will get us any closer to fairness and growth is untruthful and a distraction from our massive workload in the area of financial services.
Let me give you just one example of how we are pre-empting and improving upon the objectives of the FTT in other dossiers. In the course of the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, we are discussing ways of dealing with any risks posed by high-frequency trading (HFT) which are more sophisticated and effective than any FTT could ever be. I call upon my colleagues to follow the Council’s lead in rejecting a European FTT and to leave it up to individual Member States to pursue such a tax if they feel it necessary."@en1
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