Robin Hood Tax Campaign comes to Brussels

The Robin Hood Tax campaign has already gained a high profile in the UK and has given momentum to similar campaigns demanding financial transaction taxes (FTT) in other European countries.

On March 25th, merry men and women, accompanied by angry bankers and confused Heads of State gathered on Place Luxembourg outside the European Parliament for a launch of the Brussels’ "Robin Hood Tax" campaign for the FTT.

The campaign brings together a broad coalition of development, social and climate NGOs in Brussels as well as Trade Unions in support of the FTT. The income the FTT would generate could be as high as €400 billion if the average rate the FTT levied was 0.05%. The campaign argues for this money to be split between domestic social and anti-poverty expenditure on the one hand and upon the Millennium Development Goals and tackling climate change on the other.

In terms of global health the campaign argues that the finances generated from an FTT would help reduce the financing gap for reaching the health MDGs. However, the income should be additional to ODA and not allow donors to forget about their current commitments on reaching 0.7 of Gross National Iincome for aid by the year 2015.

The media stunt took place as European Heads of State meet in the coming days to address the continuing climate and economic crises, agree on a new strategy for jobs and growth, and examine financial market regulation ahead of the next G20 meeting. The Campaign had already sent letters to the key Commissioners urging their public support for the FTT ahead of the summit, letters that were signed by:
 The European Confederation of Trade Unions,
 European Public Health Alliance,
 Friends of the Earth Europe,
 Greenpeace European Unit,
 Oxfam International,
 Solidar,
 Stop Aids Alliance, and the
 WWF European Policy Office.

Over the past weeks, innovative sources of finance, including the FTT, have seen support at all levels of EU institutions, including in ECOFIN (finance) Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament, which just passed a resolution supporting the FTT. The conclusions of the summit continued this trend with a direct request for the Commission to examine the FTT ahead of the G20.

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