Cause to Celebrate: Paris Conference Success
Last Thursday morning the French government announced it will lead a group of nations to examine implementation of a Currency Transaction Levy (CTL). It is the first time such a high level public endorsement of the proposal has taken place by a nation state.
Bernard Kouchner, France's Minister of Foreign and European Affairs said: "I promise you, and our country, France, is ready to assist a pioneer group of States in applying this type of tax which was already adopted in our parliament in 2001. So it is possible to implement such a measure, which could perhaps be applied to the European market initially". By Friday morning Kouchner’s announcement had spread like wildfire through the French press.
But the good news doesn't stop there. By Friday afternoon Gordon Brown’s Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems had announced that the CTL will also go forward as a key recommendation to the G8 summit this July.
May we extend a massive thank you to all who emailed the Taskforce – it was a direct result of pressure from civil society that made this possible.
Look out for further emails in our ‘Month of Action’ series and help us turn this momentum into an unstoppable force.
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