Finance Minister François Baroin signalled on Tuesday that nine eurozone governments are ready to press ahead with the introduction of a Paris-inspired financial transactions tax.

"/> Finance Minister François Baroin signalled on Tuesday that nine eurozone governments are ready to press ahead with the introduction of a Paris-inspired financial transactions tax.

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France claims broad support for finance tax

Finance Minister François Baroin signalled on Tuesday that nine eurozone governments are ready to press ahead with the introduction of a Paris-inspired financial transactions tax.

France claims broad support for finance tax
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Baroin’s office said the minister had written to the European Union’s current Danish presidency asking for examination of a draft law championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy to be examined by the summer.

The fact that nine countries are signatories to the letter is highly significant, as it paves the way for a special provision of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty that allows at least one third of the EU’s member states to trailblaze new laws by themselves.

This comes in the face of fierce opposition to an EU-wide tax from Britain, whose Prime Minister David Cameron said during the last EU summit that French banks would up and move to the City of London to escape the tax.

The so-called “enhanced cooperation” provision has already been used to overcome difficulties in harmonising some aspects of cross-border divorce law, and is also being used in moves to drive through a single EU patent despite decades-long objections.

The nine countries are: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

The letter is signed by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and the finance ministers of the other eight, Baroin’s office said.

In it, they say a tax is necessary “to ensure a fair contribution from the financial sector to the costs of the financial crisis, but also to improve the regulation of markets.”

The nine are said to be giving their “full support” to a bid for EU governments to examine formal legislative proposals “in the first half of 2012.”

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced last month that a French financial transactions tax would take effect in August, saying it would add one billion euros annually to state revenues.

According to a draft of the French legislation obtained by BFM Business and published on its website, the 0.1 percent tax will apply to acquisitions of shares belonging to “companies whose headquarters are located in France and whose market capitalisation exceeds one billion euros.”

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HEALTH

In the absence of tourists, Spaniards reclaim their cities

In Barcelona, Laia and her daughter stroll peacefully in Park Guell.

In the absence of tourists, Spaniards reclaim their cities
A local takes a selfie at Barcelona's Park Guell. Photo: JOSEP LAGO / AFP

The lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic may not have been universally popular but they have had the effect of alleviating, at least temporarily, some of the ills associated with tourism, notably the overcrowding of city centres and a rapid rise in prices and rents.

Park Guell, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the great legacies of modernist architect Antoni Gaudi, is currently for the exclusive use of the residents of the area.

“All my childhood, I played in this park but I never came with my daughter because it was impossible to do anything, there were too many people,” says Laia Torra.

Today, the 39-year-old sports teacher is visiting the park with a friend and her children.

At their disposal lies one of the most coveted places in the park — a long undulating bench decorated with colourful mosaics, overlooking a wonderful panorama of the city, with the Mediterranean on the horizon.

The two women normally never go there as it is always swarmed by visitors looking for the best angles for the seemingly obligatory Barcelona selfie.

“It's wonderful, it's like going back 20 years,” says Torra as the kids gallivant on a scooter and bike.

“We know it's temporary but we have to take advantage of it.” The “Tourist, go home” signs which had flourished in recent years have lost their raison d'etre, at least for a while.

After protests in recent summers against the partying and incivility of some tourists, the former fishermen's quarter of Barceloneta has been transformed into a gigantic open-air gymnasium, where locals come to run, swim and surf during the authorised hours.

“Normally I don't go to these beaches,” admits a beaming Emma Prades, a 43-year-old psychologist.

“Now it's more tempting. And the water is cleaner.”

An almost empty Barceloneta beach. Photo: LLUIS GENE / AFP

'A tourist monoculture'

Marti Cuso, a 30-year-old social worker, has long opposed the tourist invasion of the centre of Barcelona, where he lives, and the subsequent pressure on the local population, many of whom have had to leave the area.

“We have been warning for years that all this could be shattered,” he says.

While other districts are awakening after the confinement thanks to the reopening of small shops, the shutters remain down in the much visited Gothic quarter and on the emblematic Las Ramblas street.

“Today, unfortunately, we are seeing the consequences,” says Cuso.

“A tourist monoculture has created a desert.”

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