Following Germany’s elections, German parties started coalition negotiations in order to have a government in place by December. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives joined forces with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) to create working groups in order to discuss and present policy compromises on a range of crucial issues. European policies such as the euro and economic and banking policy were the subject of the first meeting on Monday. Consensus was reached on the European Financial Transaction Tax: Germany should endorse it. The SPD plans to make the tax a “high priority” since it is considered a “project of central importance”. European integration and European finances, especially in terms of employment and innovation, as well as the European banking union, will continue to be discussed since both parties agree they need to negotiate a common position. As far as the euro bonds are concerned, they were not up for discussion since the German constitution does not allow for this to be implemented.
EuroFinUse supports the main objective of the FTT, which is intended to ensure that financial institutions make a fair and substantial contribution to covering the costs of the recent crisis and to ring-fence the red economy, SME’s, households, etc. However, it is very concerned with the fact that the Commission’s proposal is likely to result in a situation where European citizens will be the ones to bear the bulk of the FTT in lieu of financial institutions. EuroFinUse asks European Authorities to clearly exempt European Union citizens from this proposal.