Bankers' bonus tax 'interesting' idea: PM

Thursday 10 December 2009

The Anglo-French suggestion to introduce special tax on bankers bonuses is an 'interesting one which merits further discussion,' Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende was quoted as saying on Thursday.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal ahead of this weekend's EU summit, British prime minister Gordon Brown and French president Nicolas Sarkozy say: 'a one-off tax in relation to bonuses should be considered a priority, due to the fact that bonuses for 2009 have arisen partly because of government support for the banking system.'

However, Balkenende emphasised that the Netherlands has developed its own policy to deal with bankers' bonuses, including a code of conduct, the Volkskrant said. Central bank president Nout Wellink has also called for restraint during the crisis.

Balkenende was speaking in the margins of the two day EEP party congress in Bonn. The EEP is a grouping of European centre-right and Christian Democratic parties and is the largest party block in the European parliament.

Jobs

Earlier, Balkenende told delegates to the conference that the party should press for 'jobs, jobs and still more jobs'. Europe must be made the most competitive economy in the world 'because elsewhere competition is growing,' he was reported as saying by news agency ANP.

'Neither socialism or liberalism can provide the balanced answer that we as Christian Democrats can,' he said. 'It is now time for action.'

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© DutchNews.nl

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