The Commission proposal to introduce a European tax is an attractive one, especially for countries which are net contributors to the EU. However, De Volkskrant argues that it will have little chance of overcoming opposition from national governments, who are reluctant to surrender control in an area as delicate as taxation.

Ten years after the introduction of the single currency, are Europeans ready to pay a tax directly to Brussels? The European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, Janusz Lewandowski, who has launched a trial balloon to this effect in the German edition of the Financial Times, believes that now is the right time to take this step towards the establishment of a European federal state. But his proposal has no chance of being implemented.

The bait that Lewandowski is using to encourage EU member states to take a position on the issue will be relatively hard to ignore: in exchange for a tax on financial transactions or passenger flights, they will be able to reduce the cost of their contributions to the administration in Brussels. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands will certainly pleased with the concept. For years they have had to contend with the political tensions that surround their status as net contributors to the EU, and now they also have to cope with the budgetary austerity required by the stability pact. So any measure that reduces the amount they have to pay to the EU would be more than welcome.

However, the disadvantages still outweigh the advantages. Member states’ fiscal authorities will be effectively sidelined by any tax that is paid directly to Brussels: and individual countries will also be concerned about exceeding limits for tax pressure on their citizens, even if these are not well defined. At the same time, a mandate to raise taxes remains the prerogative of national governments and they would like to keep it that way. In the UK, where fear of the European Superstate is inculcated from a very young age, the British are already insisting that "if you give Brussels an inch, it will take a mile." And in recent years, voters in other European countries appear to be adopting a similar position: especially in the Netherlands and France, where the rejection of the European Constitution in 2005 marked a radical departure in European politics. Commissioner Lewandowski’s proposals do nothing to address this growing phenomenon of Euroscepticism.

But it should be pointed that the measures he aims to implement are not the product of solipsistic thinking on the part of Brussels bureaucrats, as Eurosceptics would like to believe, but a survival strategy for the Commission which is anticipating that negotiations for the 2014-2021 EU budget will be particularly hard-fought. In view of the financial problems that prevail in many of Europe’s member states, an alternative source of revenue could offer a convenient solution, but in all likelihood it will be shelved in response to the fierce opposition to " more Europe," which exists in EU member states.