European Parliament passes resolution on taxing speculative financial transactions.

The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the European Commission to analyse the possibility of introducing a tax on financial transactions such as a Tobin Tax or a Robin Hood Tax.  The motion was passed by 536 votes to 80. The full text of the resolution is available here.  Social Justice Ireland welcomes this vote and urges the European Commission and the European Council to give priority to addressing this particular proposal which has huge potential for substantially reducing financial speculation and for ensuring that financial institutions pay a fair share of tax which they do not do at present.

Social Justice Ireland has argued that the financial sector should make a fair and substantial contribution towards paying for the heavy  burden which, in recent years, it has placed on the real economy either directly or indirectly through the cost of government interventions to stabilise the banking system.It is now over to the European Commission and the Council of Ministers (including Taoiseach Brian Cowan and Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan) to take up this proposal and produce an honest report outlining the pluses and minuses of a tax on all financial transactions. Such a move would be very well received especially by all those who have suffered as a result of the wild activities of banks and financial institutions in recent years.