scholarly journals Finance Capitalism and Democracy: The Case of the Financial Transactions Tax

Author(s):  
Stephan Schulmeister

AbstractThis chapter analyses the pros and cons of financial transaction taxes (FTT) as mechanisms to mitigate financial instability and the proposal of the European Commission to implement an FTT in the EU in September 2011 until its suspension, as well as the prospects for it to be adopted in the future.

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-172
Author(s):  
Ilya Lifshits ◽  

The adoption of a legal instrument relating to the harmonization of the ten Member States‟ laws on the financial transaction tax could be the first attempt in the EU history to establish an enhanced cooperation in the area of taxation. This project should be considered in the wider context of the financial sphere reform, which was caused by the global financial crisis. The draft Directive implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the financial transaction tax has been discussed in the Council for 7 years but an accord has not been reached yet. The ambition of the European Commission to enlarge the scope of the financial transaction tax payers as much as possible is perceived by the non-participating Member States as an encroachment of their tax jurisdiction which contradicts the international customary law as well as The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. An examination of the reasons of unsuccessful negotiations may lead to a conclusion on drawbacks of the enhanced cooperation in taxation policy. It is not likely that this mechanism would be used in the future to tax a very mobile financial market where the tax base may be easily transferred to the non-tax states. Meanwhile the participation of the leading EU States in the project, a wide public support of the „Robin Hood Tax‟ and Brexit suggest that in the coming months financial transactions in ten Member States will be charged by the harmonized tax. However, the scope of the tax would be reduced in comparison with that in the initial draft of the European Commission.


2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192
Author(s):  
Gieyoung Lim ◽  
Zie-eun Yang

Should the same convergence criteria be applied to the countries that are relatively poorer in the region, or will the Commission try to revise the rules by request of the French and German governments? Due to the larger economies' economic under-performance in recent years, even the European Commission are taking account of the revision of some of the criteria. Are there any other possibilities except for the revision of the criteria? In this paper, we focus on the future prospect of the convergence criteria and suggest the possible scenarios for those questions.


Significance The celebration came just days before the United Kingdom is set to begin the withdrawal process. Precisely what path the EU will take over the next decade remains uncertain and the European Commission has kicked off a process of dialogue on various scenarios for its future. Impacts Debates about the future of the EU will occur simultaneously with Brexit negotiations and be coloured by them. EU leaders will be keen to continue to demonstrate their commitment to press forward with European integration despite Brexit. Brexit will not lead to an unravelling of the EU and thus far has served to enhance support for the Union in other member states. Yet Brexit will not lead to any sudden deepening of integration.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-161
Author(s):  
Bernard Spiegel

For EU Member States like Austria, the EU Regulations on the coordination of social security schemes are the focus of academic and political attention. They deal with many cases and are usually very complex. They are supervised by the European Commission and the CJEU. Compared to these EU rules, bilateral agreements with third countries are treated as step-children. They do not get the academic and political attention they deserve, taking into account their importance in practice. They have common features compared to the EU rules, but there are also remarkable differences in the texts and their interpretation. The differences sometimes lead to practical problems of application and interpretation in the EU Member States. Based on Austrian experiences, all these aspects are elaborated in this article. Enhanced cooperation and exchange of information between the EU Member States in the future could help to improve the negotiating position of these countries and also guarantee greater esteem for the bilateral agreements.


Author(s):  
Robert Geyer

Direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs (DTCA-PD) is currently banned in the EU, but the pharmaceutical industry (supported by key member states and DG Enterprise) made two major attempts to overturn it in the 2000s at the EU level and failed. What does this failure imply for the debates surrounding this policy area and EU health policy in general? To explore this question, this article will define DTCA-PD, examine its pros and cons, provide a brief overview of EU health policy and present a detailed review of the two recent attempts to overturn the ban. Following this, it will examine the five key elements of EU health policy, evaluate their relevance to the development of the EU's policy towards DTCA-PD and briefly speculate on the future of the ban.


Equilibrium ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Manuela Raisová ◽  
Martina Regásková ◽  
Kornélia Lazányi

Research background: There are various forms of fiscal taxation of the financial assets. In recent times, the discussion about financial transaction tax in the EU is associated with finding the solution to problems due to great financial crisis. The European Commission has made some efforts to strengthen capital regulation and it has adopted the Directive about implementing enhanced cooperation in the field of financial transaction tax, where it analyzed options and impacts of FTT according to those countries which have already implemented similar transaction taxes in their national legislatives. Purpose of the article: Our aim is to find out the economic relationship between FTT and economic growth and to analyze the effect of FTT within selected EU countries. Methods: In this paper, we will analyze the banking environment in the EU area, and we emphasize the correlation between tax policy and economic growth. We will test FTT through three-way mixed-effects ANOVA, and analyze three Member states, Belgium, Ireland and the United Kingdom, which have very active attitude to implementation of FTT within other EU countries. Findings & Value added: We are interested in: (1) testing the relationship between the financial transaction tax (FTT) and economic growth (GDP); and (2) to verify the hypothesis that FTT could improve GDP growth in a country. We assume that if a country has adopted FTT in its tax system, then it will lead to a significant GDP growth, and so it could lead to financial market improvement after the crisis. Our results have shown that an increase in FTT volume would lead only to a negligible increase in the economic growth.


Author(s):  
Pauline Heinrichs

What kind of Europe the EU seeks to be, how it perceives itself and how it seeks to enact this Europe is a highly contentious issue and has powerful political stakes attached to its construction and realisation. This paper is specifically interested in how crises can constitute a compounded and expanded space for agency of political actors to forge identity narratives of the future. This paper draws on speeches by EC officials from 16 July 2019 to 7 July 2020, while coding along four analytical markers for crises as identified by Filip Ejdus (2020, p. 2, italics in original): “existence, finitude, relations and autobiography”. This article finds that while actors seek to create space for political agency by writing a moment of existential (external) crises to the EU’s project, they appear less equipped to use this moment politically. In this way, they co-construct a space potentially open to political creativity, but fail to fill this space with political creativity as to the future of the autobiographical narrative.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 60-70
Author(s):  
O. М. Rudik

The article researches the scenarios for the future development of the EU by 2025 proposed by the European Commission. The white paper on the future of EU looks at how Europe will change in the next decade, from the impact of new technologies on society and jobs, to doubts about globalization, security concerns and the rise of populism. The European Commission emphasizes that the Europe’s role as a positive global force is more important today than ever. However, under the pressure of global competition the United Europe’s place in the world and its economic weight are shrinking, which is a solid foundation for preserving the unity of the Union for the sake of achieving greater. On the contrary, the most desirable scenario, as can be seen from the speech by the President of the European Commission, is to give the European Union a greater amount of power, resources and decision-making powers. As a result, cooperation between the EU-27 Member States will deepen in all areas than ever before. The White Paper outlines ve main scenarios («Carrying on», «Nothing but the single market», «Those who want more do more», «Doing less more e ciently», «Doing much more together»), each of them provides an opportunity to look at the possible state of a airs in the Union by 2025, depending on the choice that the EU will make by 2019. In the opinion of Jean-Claude Juncker, the most negative scenario of the EU development, and therefore extremely undesirable, is to bring its goals to purely economic, focusing the Union’s activities on the development of a single internal market and ensuring its uninterrupted functioning («Nothing but the single market» scenario). Based on data from the European Commission the author shows and brie y describes the key advantages and disadvantages of each of the scenarios. The common features of these scenarios are outlined: rst, they all come from the fact that the United Kingdom withdraws from the EU; secondly, none of them doubts the need to preserve the euro as common currency and the Schengen zone, thirdly, neither the scenarios refers to further EU enlargement. Since none of the proposed scenarios provides for the complete disintegration of the EU, that is, the disappearance of it as a geopolitical actor, it is concluded that in the strategic perspective all the outlined models of the EU’s future development suit Ukraine. Moreover, the steps recently proposed by the President of Ukraine and the European Parliament for deepening the economic integration of Ukraine with the EU and its association with the Schengen area also does not contradict any of the scenarios.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-223
Author(s):  
Julianna Sára Traser ◽  
Márta Benyusz

This article concludes the presentations made at and the main lessons drawn from the international conference held on 21 September 2020, within the framework of the pan-European dialogue on the future of Europe, co-organised by the Ferenc Mádl Institute and the Ministry of Justice. It also presents the EU context and background of the debate, the role of the EU institutions, and the evolution of their position. The event was attended by representatives of the EU, Hungarian politicians, and representatives from academia and civil society. With this event, Hungary officially launched a series of conferences on the future of Europe. The presentations in these conferences reflected the crises facing the Union, including the institutional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effectiveness of the EU and its Member States' responses to them. The speakers considered the involvement of and consultation with citizens important to the process. In the context of disputes over competences between the EU and the Member States, some speakers drew attention to the spillover effect, and others called for the strengthening of the supervisory role of constitutional courts and the need for more effective involvement of national parliaments in subsidiarity control, with regard to the sovereignty of the Member States and the primacy of EU law. Critical remarks were made on the limited nature of civil society representation at the EU level. The article reflects on the main events on thinking about the future of Europe over the last four years, including the main initiatives and positions expressed by the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Heads of State and Government, citizens' consultations, and institutional competition in relation to the thematic and organisational issues of the EU-level conference. Whereas the European Commission and European Parliament, which has an ambitious position and has already proposed concrete solutions to organisational and governance issues, were the first to formulate their vision, the position of the Council, representing the Member States, will not be established until June 2020. Thus, no joint declaration on part of the institutions has been adopted thus far and no conference has been hosted, either. In view of all this, the organisation of the international conference by the Ferenc Mádl Institute of Comparative Law and the Ministry of Justice can be considered timely and proactive.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Samo Bardutzky

Abstract This article is inspired by the 2017 discussions on the future of Europe (in particular some of the ideas debated in the White Paper on the Future of Europe, published by the European Commission) and the events that took place in the crises and post-crises period (aftermath of the financial crisis, ongoing refugee crisis and the Brexit shock). It is particularly interested in the scenario of differentiated integration. In this regard, it observes how in the aftermath of the crises, there was a shift in the rationale of differentiated integration with objective (in)ability of the states taking a prominent role. It presents a federalist critique of this development, drawing on the work of Daniel Elazar, discussing the concepts of non-centralization, federal process and federal covenant in the context of the 2017 discussions in the EU.


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