23/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - Le Monde of 23 March launched a call for a European research tax to be introduced. The call was above all made by Alain Trautmann, spokesman for Sauvons la recherche, and Pierre Larrouturou, spokesman for L'Union pour l'Europe sociale. The signatories assert: “If we were to decide, with a number of neighbouring countries, to create a common defence system (…) and integrated research, both financed by a European tax, our national budgets would immediately find new margins of manoeuvre for hospitals, housing, justice, education and decentralisation …”. They went on to assure that their objective “is not to increase taxation for the pleasure of doing so”. They say one might foresee a “corporate tax as this has decreased considerably in the past twenty years, to the benefit of shareholders rather than investment”, or an “ecotax” or even “a traditional tax on profits” They also ask: “Why not also open the debate on an improved Tobin Tax?”