EU Commission backs 10 countries' transaction tax plan, Malta stays out

The European Commission today threw its support  behind a plan by 10 eurozone countries to use a single rule to tax transactions by financial institutions as a way of contributing to the cost of the sovereign debt crisis. Malta is among those countries oppositing the plan. Support for the harmonised financial transaction tax (FTT) could open another rift in Europe, where countries already diverge in their regulation of finance and where politicians have long argued over how best to control banks. "I am delighted to see that 10 member states have indicated their willingness to participate in a common FTT along the lines of the Commission's original proposal," Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU executive, said in a statement. "This tax can raise billions of euros of much-needed revenue for member states in these difficult times. This is about fairness: we need to ensure the costs of the crisis are shared by the financial sector instead of shouldered by ordinary citizens," he said. The 10 countries are France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. They decided to push on with the introduction of the single tax after the idea, which...