Vienna bankers threaten to jump ship

Should Europe introduce a 0.15 % tax on bankers' balance sheets, as Barack Obama is proposing to do in the United States? "Don't say no too quickly" to the latest idea from the new generation of "tax gurus" who have emerged in the financial crisis, advises Die Presse. The Viennese daily notes that hot on the heels of Sweden, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann (SPÖ) is now taking an interest in the scheme, which he hopes will net 500 million euros for the national exchequer, and the plan will be on the agenda for the next informal meeting of Europe's finance ministers. "Major banks cannot go bankrupt, because governments are obliged to bail them out," and they should pay for this privilege, argues Die Presse. But customers would probably end up footing the bill for the new financial charges and not the "financial acrobats" who manage the country's money. For their part, the bankers who are mounting a counter attack. The head of RZB bank has retorted that "Austrian banks were not responsible for triggering the financial crisis." And if Austria is the only state to introduce such a tax, the bankers have let it be known that they will delocalize: "Bratislava is only 60 kilometres from Vienna".