Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I thought the Tobin Tax was one of many regulations being considered by the EU. We wanted an exemption from any EU directive being imposed on our finance industry. That was my understanding anyway....
---------- Post added at 15:34 ---------- Previous post was at 15:33 ----------
So essentially we always had, and have, the option not to impose the Tobin Tax but abide by the other measures?
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I was referring to UK regulation of the City etc. which IIRC is coming under Bank of England control as opposed to the FSA's.
I think all of the above has to be seen in the context of a relationship with Europe which has proved very difficult over many years and fraught with disagreements. The Franco-German view of the EU has always been substantially different from our own and my feeling is that Cameron did not believe there could be any guarantees that the tax and other regulations could/would not be imposed on the UK by the back door. Given what I hear other EU representative saying after Cameron's veto was used it seems clear to me that there's even disagreement amongst them about how far the existing highly complex treaties go and what is/isn't possible with regard to the UK. As I've said before there's still every chance they'll try to impose new rules/taxes on the UK and we may wind up having to consider leaving the EU altogether. My feeling is that this is what they want.