Sester: Estonia drops out of financial transaction tax plan
On Tuesday, EU finance ministers discussed enhanced cooperation towards a common financial transaction tax. Estonia has now decided to drop out of negotiations for a directive on financial transaction tax.
“We have participated as a constructive partner in the enhanced cooperation to build a financial transaction tax since 2013, knowing that we must seriously weight it before implementation,” Estonian Finance Minister Sven Sester said.
He said the initial agreement on the tax has shifted from Estonia's initial goals during the talks.
“For example the tax base has been limited and the impacts of that are partly unforeseen, considering that we would be the only nation in our region who would tax the finance sector in such a way,” he said.
The European Commission proposed a tax on financial transactions already in 2011, but there was no broad based agreement. The next step was a group of 11 nations which began enhanced cooperation towards the aim. Besides Estonia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia also participated in the project.
The aim of the group was to work out a directive. Estonia will remain in the group and help construct the tax, but will no longer have a vote in the group.
Editor: J.M. Laats