Brussels, 22/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 30 April, the European Court of Justice will be ruling in case C-209/11 on the United Kingdom's request for the cancellation of Council of Ministers' decision of January 2013 (see EUROPE 10769) to allow eleven member states (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Slovakia) to use the “enhanced cooperation” mechanism to introduce a financial transactions tax (FTT) in their countries.
The UK argues that the tax would have an extra-territorial impact that would damage the City of London and the UK as a business centre and that, along with the EU directives on mutual assistance and administrative cooperation, it will involve costs for non-participating countries. Reserving the right to challenge the application of the FTT by the eleven countries if it fails in this action, the UK is nevertheless trying to get the Court of Justice to annul the authorisation for enhanced cooperation among the eleven nations.
The decision to allow the enhanced cooperation was taken by the Council on 22 January 2013 when the ministers saw that it would not be possible to get all 27 member states to go along with the European Commission's proposal for the new tax. The Commission then drew up a new draft directive for an eleven-country FTT (see EUROPE 10785). (FG)