Nicolas Sarkozy said in a press conference tonight that, regardless of its European partners desire, he wants to introduce a tax on financial transactions.

“When you buy an apartment, you pay a tax in each country. When you buy food from the store, you pay a tax. When you do financial transactions you do not pay any tax! Who understands that? Who accepts it?”, he asked, rhetorically.

France wants to impose a tax on financial transactions and has in UK, the biggest opponent. He also spoke recently on a charge so-called “Tobin” on financial transactions, and Sarkozy announced that France is ready to impose such a tax, even if the European partners do not want that.

UK, who vehemently defended the City of London, is opposing to the implementation of this tax. Although, if we calculate the money that Britain would raise from this tax, it would be billions of pounds.

Apparently, Italy and Germany is backing Nicolas Sarkozy, in his approach. Angela Merkel’s spokesman said the German government wants to analyze in detail this proposal, in the first three months of this year. Sarkozy’s desire is that this decision should be taken at the end of January, when there will be a new Euro summit.

The Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Monti, spoke in favor of imposing the Tobin tax, but only in the whole EU.

On the other hand, the Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas, warned that the EU does not need new taxes that apply only in the EU and should be a general consensus.

This fee, in the opinion of Sarkozy, would mean that financial institutions are actively involved in repair of EU economic disaster.

Tobin tax, suggested by Nobel laureate James Tobin, was originally defined as a tax on all spot swap between one currency and another. The fee was intended to penalize the short term financial speculation of a currency to another.