Ten eurozone countries have agreed on the basics of a tax on financial transactions, with the details, such as exact tax rates and how its proceeds will be allocated, due to be finalised in June 2016.

Ministers from Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain collectively issued a statement saying that the tax would be applied to all share transactions, including intraday trading and would be paid by traders in one of the countries participating in the scheme on shares issued in those countries.

The group also agreed that it would apply to derivatives transactions.

Climate aid

The financial-transaction tax (FTT), also called the 'Tobin tax', is intended to recover some of the public money used to support banks, to curb speculative trading and to unify the various levies already charged in several EU countries. It is also being considered as a new funding stream for poorer countries affected by climate change, with France, Spain and Belgium already committing to giving a portion of their Tobin tax revenues as climate aid.

Estonia pulls out

Estonia was part of the group of 11 countries that declared in September their intentions of going ahead with the tax but it didn't sign the agreement yesterday. The Estonian minister cited concerns that, because most of the shares traded by the country's financial institutions are issued outside the participating group, it would receive little revenue from the tax, while Estonian traders would have an incentive to move their business elsewhere.

According to Pascal Canfin, the co-chair of France’s presidential committee for innovative finance and a former French development minister, the proposed fund would generate a minimum of €10bn to €15bn (£7.2bn to £10.8bn) a year.

The proposal of the European Commission from 2013 envisaged a tax rate of 0.1 percent on share and bond trades and 0.01 percent on derivatives trades.