With the financial markets in turmoil, Germany and France pushed for measures that would curb excessive and damaging volatility at the meeting of European Union economics and finance ministers.
Officials at the commission will prepare a report for the meeting of the European Council in Ghent in December, assessing the way in which the so-called Tobin tax — named after Yale economics professor James Tobin — could be introduced.
With at least $1.5 trillion passing through the foreign exchanges every day, a Tobin tax set at only 0.1% would, in theory, raise $7.5 billion a week.
British Chancellor Gordon Brown backed the investigation but insisted that it should be part of a wider study into globalization and the financing of development.
Treasury officials said that the British government supported the idea of a Tobin tax, which could raise billions of pounds a year to increase aid to the world´s poorest countries, but believed that there were practical problems of implementation to be overcome.
