“FTT stands for Financial Transaction Tax and not Flimsy Token Tactic as cynically pursued by Merkel and Sarkozy”

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President of the PES is engaged in a weeklong concerted effort to ensure that the G20 summit takes ‘concrete meaningful steps’ on the introduction of a global financial transaction tax (FTT).

Having successfully campaigned for the FTT to be put on the European agenda, the PES President has organised a series of high-level meetings to underline the need for this tax, set at 0.05%, to be introduced as widely as possible

This tour comes after the European Council decision last week to put the FTT back on the G20 agenda. Reports suggested that Chancellor Merkel of Germany and French President Sarkozy had called for the inclusion. However Rasmussen questioned the depth of the commitment by the French and German leaders and suggested that they had lobbied for the FTT solely to deflect attention from their own austerity programmes. The PES President, calling for concrete measures, reminded them that; “FTT stands for Financial Transaction Tax and not the Flimsy Token Tactic as cynically pursued by Merkel and Sarkozy”.

Mr. Rasmussen will meet with the following key supporters and decision makers over the course of the coming week:

• Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Director General of the IMF (Tuesday, 22 June)

• John Monks, ETUC General Secretary and Guy Ryder, ITUC General Secretary (Wednesday, 23 June)

• Peter De Fazio, US Congressman and leading US advocate for an FTT (Thursday, 24 June)

• Heather Booth Americans for Financial Reform (Friday, 25 June)

Other voices ahead of the G20 summit continue to show the sharp divisions between the progressive path for a balanced recovery, which includes the FTT, and the stark budget cut approach of Conservatives. Mr Rasmussen criticised comments by Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who stated in a New York Times interview today that; “Germany was basically right to impose its austerity measures”.

Mr. Rasmussen stated that; “this interview shows the true side of M. Barroso. He is at one with the Conservative ‘Austerity-Only approach’, which seems to think that we can strangle our way back to economic health”.

For further information please contact Brian Synnott on +32 474 98 96 75 (brian.synnott@pes.org)