ROME: Italy is open to the idea of introducing a tax on financial transations championed by France but only if the measure is part of an EU-wide effort, Prime Minister
Mario Monti said on Sunday. "The government headed by (my predecessor Silvio) Berlusconi had voiced its opposition at the
EU level, I however have expressed the Italian government's openness on that issue," Monti said on RAI 3 public television. "We are prepared to work on it but never, and I mean never, if it was to apply only to Italy. By contrast, at a time when it is in our interest to cooperate closely with Germany and France, why not," he said. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that France should not wait for other European countries to get on board with the so-called Tobin tax, named after Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin. "It has nothing to do with the fact that I was a student of Professor Tobin," said Monti, a former European commissioner who took office as Italy's prime minister and finance minister in November. Monti had already said on Friday he thought such a decision needed EU-wide backing. "It is necessary that the different countries do not go it alone in the application of this tax. I believe in a European perspective," he had said, voicing a position echoed by Germany. Britain, which fears for the future of the City of London financial district, has said it would block any move to introduce an EU-wide Tobin tax. Sarkozy is to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday to harmonise their stance ahead of a January 30 European summit on the union's debt crisis.
