FT.com / Comment & analysis / Columnists - Merkel’s misguided transatlantic trade notions

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Columnists - Merkel’s misguided transatlantic trade notions

Remember the Tobin tax on financial transactions? Someone on Europe’s political left proposes it about every 10 years. There is some fuss about it for a short period and then it disappears.

I was reminded of the permanently doomed Tobin tax when I first heard about German plans for a transatlantic free trade agreement last autumn. A decade ago, the European Commission endorsed such a proposal but the French unsurprisingly vetoed it. This year Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, wants to have another go at a transatlantic agreement to harmonise regulation as part of Germany’s presidency of the European Union.