19/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Belgian Presidency plans to call on the European Commission for a feasibility study to be made on the Tobin Tax, said Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders, speaking on Wednesday before the committee on finance at the Belgian Chamber and Senate. Invented in 1972 by American economist James Tobin, this tax on exchange operations is one of the claims made by anti-globalisation movements. The Belgian Presidency had already announced its intention to speak about it during the informal Ecofin Council on 22 and 23 September. The directorate general for European Parliament studies has published a study entitled the "feasibility of an international Tobin tax", which concludes that the tax can only be a "second choice" as it is not certain that "its power of dissuasion on destabilising speculation is greater than the harm that it would do to stabilising operations" (see EUROPE of 6 January, p.12).