EU finance ministers seek European bank tax

A consensus is growing in Europe that banks should be charged for the costs of financial crises but although the bloc is moving slowly toward taking such measures to reduce bank profits, there is disagreement over how this should be done.


Finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries ditched plans for a global bank levy at the weekend in the face of opposition from Japan, Canada and Brazil, whose lenders sailed through the credit storm unharmed.

This throws down the gauntlet to the European Union to go it alone. Many of the EU's leaders have promised they will do so, but European diplomats said their differences were unlikely to be settled on Tuesday.


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