An agreement is within reach: be ready. This was the message delivered on Friday, 14 June, by German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on behalf of the ten countries participating in enhanced cooperation to introduce a financial transaction tax (FTT).
"It was really good progress that we made this morning and also the meetings before. The enhanced cooperation is working very hard to get an agreement and I think that we are now at a stage where it is highly likely that we will be successful up to Autumn", Scholz told his European counterparts at the meeting.
The participating countries - namely France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Austria, Slovenia, Greece, Spain, Italy and Slovakia - met on Friday morning to discuss a first text proposing a tax based on the French model (see EUROPE 12151/2) and then to review progress at the ECOFIN Council.
At a joint press conference with the French Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz said that this meeting on the FTT was very important because several governments have changed since the last discussions. Hence the importance for them to reaffirm their support for the ongoing process.
The participants in the enhanced cooperation are working on a legal text, he said, that could be produced "in the next weeks".
"So the message from today is: we are highly likely to get there and it could happen in the next weeks or in the next 1, 2, 3 months that we ask you to support us with the adoption of something like that", he told his European counterparts.
The German Minister also recalled the willingness of France and Germany to share revenue collected at national level between participating Member States because "there are completely different countries participating, countries with very big stocks markets, countries with very small ones".
There are still differences on how this should be done, he acknowledged, but remained optimistic that agreement on this point would be reached.
Contrary to what the Franco-German couple hoped for (see EUROPE 12261/6), no new Member State has indicated that it wishes to join the enhanced cooperation. The discussion at Ecofin lasted only 5 minutes, with no speeches from other countries.
"We can welcome the agreement reached - or in the process of being reached - between the ministers of the ten participating States", said European Taxation Commissioner Pierre Moscovici at the meeting.
The Commission gives it its full political support. "Because if we are not able to overcome the unanimity of Twenty-eight and not able to set up enhanced cooperation, we are powerless", he admitted.
An agreement between the ten Member States on the FTT only triggers further deliberations in the Council of the EU, with all Member States, said Eugen Teodorovici, Romania's Finance Minister. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana, Mathieu Bion and Lucas Tripoteau)