Merkel to push finance tax at 'big four' meeting

(BERLIN) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel will campaign for a disputed tax on financial markets at a key summit of the eurozone's four major powers later this month, her spokesman said on Monday.

Merkel is "personally convinced of the need" for a tax on financial market transactions, Steffen Seibert told a regular news conference.

"She will bring up the topic, for example, at the four-way meeting with France, Spain and Italy in Rome on June 22," added the spokesman.

However, Seibert was at pains to stress that Germany "is not the only one in Europe that can decide when such a tax would come" but insisted: "We will be campaigning for it hard."

The European Commission and several EU states are determined to introduce a tax on financial transactions but the plans have met with strong opposition, notably from Britain with its powerful financial sector.

"The idea of a tax across Europe on transactions, I think, would simply drive those transactions offshore to other places and would cost jobs and is not the right approach," said Prime Minister David Cameron after meeting Merkel on Thursday.

Seibert, in contrast, said: "For the federal government, it is absolutely clear that we need a financial transaction tax so that the markets can contribute to the costs of fighting the crisis."

The leaders of Spain, France, Germany and Italy will gather in Rome on June 22 to debate the future of Europe and the euro ahead of a meeting of all 27 EU leaders in Brussels on June 27-28.

Seibert said Merkel was likely to find an "ally" in French President Francois Hollande at these talks when it came to the tax.

A spokesman for Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the same briefing that the topic would likely play a role too at the next meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg, also on June 22.

"We are doing everything we can to get the tax as quickly as possible and as widely implemented as possible," said the spokesman, Martin Kotthaus.