How to pay for Europe's disasters

We all know that one of the sticking blocks  for an agreement on the EU's budget is the whole troublesome issue of own resources. Here is Josh Chaffin at the FT a few weeks ago,

The European Union should explore taxes on financial transactions, air transport and other activities to generate its own sources of funding, the European Commission recommended as it kicked off a formal debate over the future of the EU budget.

It seems however that things are coagulating around a single proposal to deal with the problem. And no prizes what it is... Yes it's Carbon taxes,

Visiting Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou expressed on Monday his support for carbon tax and transaction tax advocated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Following a working lunch with the French president at the Elysee Palace, Papandreou told the press he and Sarokzy discussed a new mechanism for the stability of the European Union, which should be financed by carbon tax on Europe level and a tax on financial transactions.

Of course scrwing the poor benighted taxpayer in this way will be wrapped in sanctimonious claptrap about hpow we will be both sorting out the financial crisis and saving the world.

HT Reference Frame

Update,

Janet Daley in the Telegraph folows the story,

George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister has said that there may need to be new Europe-wide forms of taxation to help pay for the bail-outs that will be needed by the growing number of crashing economies in the euro-zone. His suggestions include “carbon dioxide taxes” which, he says, could provide “important revenues and resouces for funding such a [bail-out] mechanism.”

I’ve never actually heard a major politician (let alone a national leader) admit this before: what Mr Papandreou is saying is that carbon taxes would have not have the effect of reducing emissions - because if they did, they would be useless as an additional form of revenue. All the hokum that is talked about protecting the planet by taxing carbon use is just a front for the real purpose of such penalties on industry and consumers which is to raise more money for governments to spend (in this case, on trying to remedy their own political follies).