European Union member states are to look at alternatives to a full-scale financial transaction tax after finance ministers failed to move any closer to consensus.

A document presented by Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, to his 26 counterparts at the meeting in Copenhagen on Friday (30 March) suggested no more than a watered-down tax on share transactions.

His document said that this should be “guided by the overall approach of the British stamp duty” or France’s tax on financial transactions, which does not include the trading of derivatives.

“While this first step is put in place, we have to work to extend taxation to other instruments so that we can achieve the comprehensive taxation of financial transactions as proposed by the [European] Commission,” Schäuble’s document said.

Lack of support

Officials from the EU and national finance ministries will now work on posible alternatives. The UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden have all said that they would not back the scheme in its current form.

The Commission proposed a financial-transaction tax in September. It suggested a 0.1% levy on share dealings and 0.01% on the trading of other financial products, to bring in an estimated €57 billion.

Member states must agree any such plan unanimously before it can become law, something that Denmark’s economics minister Margrethe Vestager acknowledged would be “extremely difficult”.

Algirdas Šemeta, the European commissioner for taxation, said he believed that Friday’s discussions showed that there was “still energy and momentum” towards a transaction tax at EU level.

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