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The Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l'Action Citoyenne (''Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen's Action'', ATTAC) is an activist organisation originally created to promote the establishment of a tax on
foreign exchange The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all as ...
transactions.


Background

Originally called "Action for a Tobin Tax to Assist the Citizen", ATTAC was a
single-issue movement Single-issue politics involves political campaigning or political support based on one essential policy area or idea. Political expression One weakness of such an approach is that effective political parties are usually coalitions of factions ...
demanding the introduction of the so-called
Tobin tax A Tobin tax was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. It was suggested by James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Tobin's tax was originally intended to penali ...
on
currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general def ...
speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, good (economics), goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline i ...
. n the ATTAC: A new European alternative to globalisation, David Moberg, These Times magazine, May 2001/ref> ATTAC has enlarged its scope to a wide range of issues related to
globalisation Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
, and monitoring the decisions of the
World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
(WTO), the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries ...
(OECD,) and the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
(IMF). ATTAC representatives attend the meetings of the G8 with the goal of influencing policymakers' decisions. Attac spokesmen recently criticised
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
for what it called the criminalisation of anti-G8 groups. At the founding, ATTAC had specific statutory objectives based on the promotion of the Tobin tax. For example, ATTAC
Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
specifies in article 1 of its statutes that it
"aims to produce and communicate information, and to promote and carry out activities of all kinds for the recapture, by the citizens, of the power that the financial sector has on all aspects of political, economic, social and cultural life throughout the world. Such means include the taxation of transactions in foreign exchange markets (Tobin tax)."''Luxembourg Official Journal'', p. 42, ATTAC Statutes (Translated from French)
/ref>
ATTAC refutes claims that it is an
anti-globalisation movement The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...
, but it criticises the
neoliberal ideology Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
that it sees as dominating economic globalisation. It supports those globalisation policies that their representatives characterise as
sustainable Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...
and
socially just Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
. One of ATTAC's slogans is "The World is not for sale", denouncing the " merchandisation" of society. Another slogan is "Another world is possible", pointing to an alternative globalisation in which people and not profit is in focus.


James Tobin opposing ATTAC

Attac was founded to promote the
Tobin tax A Tobin tax was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. It was suggested by James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Tobin's tax was originally intended to penali ...
by the
Keynesian Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output and ...
economist
James Tobin James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He devel ...
. Tobin has said that Attac has misused his name. He says he has nothing in common with their goals and supports
free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econo ...
— "everything that these movements are attacking. They're misusing my name.""They Are Misusing My Name"
, an interview with James Tobin, ''Der Spiegel'', 03 September 2001


Organisational history

In December 1997,
Ignacio Ramonet Ignacio Ramonet Miguez (born 5 May 1943) is a Spanish academic, journalist and writer who has been based in Paris for much of his career. After becoming first known for writing on film and media, he became editor-in-chief of ''Le Monde diplomatiq ...
wrote in ''
Le Monde diplomatique ''Le Monde diplomatique'' (meaning "The Diplomatic World" in French) is a French monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. The publication is owned by Le Monde diplomatique SA, a subsidiary com ...
'' an editorial in which he advocated the establishment of the
Tobin tax A Tobin tax was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. It was suggested by James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Tobin's tax was originally intended to penali ...
and the creation of an organisation to pressure governments around the world to introduce the tax. ATTAC was created on June 3, 1998, during a constitutive assembly in
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. While it was founded in France it now exists in over forty countries around the world. In France, politicians from the left are members of the association. In Luxembourg, Francois Bausch of the left Green party is the founding politician in the association's initial member list. ATTAC functions on a principle of
decentralisation Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...
: local associations organise meetings, conferences, and compose documents that become counter-arguments to the perceived neoliberal discourse. ATTAC aims to formalise the possibility of an alternative to the neoliberal society that is currently required of globalisation. ATTAC aspires to be a movement of popular education.


Views on Attac and its members in different countries


Finland

Communist Juhani Lohikoski, previously a chairman of
Communist Youth League The Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), also known as the Young Communist League of China or simply the Communist Youth League (CYL), is a youth movement of the People's Republic of China for youth between the ages of 14 and 28, run by the ...
and Socialist League, served as the chairman of Finnish Attac for two terms (2002 - 2004). Yrjö Hakanen, chairman of the
Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned by ...
, was a member of the board and a member of the founding committee. In March 2002
Aimo Kairamo Aimo (commonly known as Saint Aimo, also Aymon or Hamon) was a mystic and monk. Born in the village of Landecob, Brittany near Rennes, Aimo entered the Benedictine monastery of Savigny, in Savigny, Normandy. Suspected of having leprosy, he ...
, the long-time chief editor of the party organ of the Social Democrat Party, resigned from Attac and recommended the same decision for other social democrats because of the left-wing minority communists' leading positions. Soon also the social democrat foreign minister
Erkki Tuomioja Erkki Sakari Tuomioja (born 1 July 1946) is a Finnish politician and a member of the Finnish Parliament. From 2000 to 2007 and 2011 to 2015, he served as the minister for foreign affairs. He was president of the Nordic Council in 2008. Tuomioja ...
considered to follow Kairamo's example.


Sweden

Researcher Malin Gawell covers the birth and development of Attac Sweden in her doctoral thesis on activist entrepreneurship. She suggests that Attac in Sweden was formed by people seeking a new way of organising with flat hierarchy, and with the strongly sensed need of making a change as the driving force.
From another perspective,
Sydsvenskan ''Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten'', generally known simply as ''Sydsvenskan'' (, ''The South Swedish''), is a daily newspaper published in Scania in Sweden. History and profile ''Sydsvenskan'' was founded in 1870. In 1871 the paper merged w ...
newspaper suggested that the downturn of memberships in Swedish Attac after the hype in the beginning of 2001 may be due to its views on trade policies.Det goda livet
Sydsvenskan ''Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snällposten'', generally known simply as ''Sydsvenskan'' (, ''The South Swedish''), is a daily newspaper published in Scania in Sweden. History and profile ''Sydsvenskan'' was founded in 1870. In 1871 the paper merged w ...
, pääkirjoitus 19.1.2004


Issues and activities

The main issues covered by ATTAC today are: * Control of financial markets (e.g., Tobin tax) * "Fair" instead of "free" trade, via democratic control of the
World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
and international financial institutions such the
International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...
,
Worldbank The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Gro ...
,
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
,
North American Free Trade Agreement The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ; es, Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; french: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that crea ...
,
Free Trade Area of the Americas The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas, excluding Cuba. Negotiations to establish the FTAA ended in failure, however, with all parties unab ...
, and G8. * Defense of public goods - air, water, information * Defense of public social services - like those relevant to health, social services, and
social security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
. For example, it is against the
privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
of
pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
s and of the
health care system Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, Mental health, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World H ...
. ATTAC has also taken a position on genetically modified organisms. ATTAC also opposes
General Agreement on Trade in Services The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which entered into force in January 1995 as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The treaty was created to extend the multilateral trading sy ...
. * The struggle to end tax evasion (
tax havens A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
) as practiced by transnational corporations and rich individuals * Sustainable globalisation * Cancellation of the
debt of Developing Countries The debt of developing countries usually refers to the external debt incurred by governments of developing countries. There have been several historical episodes of governments of developing countries borrowing in quantities beyond their abilit ...
. * ATTAC campaigned against the
Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE; commonly referred to as the European Constitution or as the Constitutional Treaty) was an unratified international treaty intended to create a consolidated constitution for the European U ...
. * ATTAC is involved in fighting against climate change, for
environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...
and, especially, in supporting
Alternatiba, Village of Alternatives Alternatiba (« Alternative », in Basque language) is a framework to mobilise society to face the challenges of climate change. Numerous Alternatiba events, which provide hundreds of alternatives in order to raise people's awareness and to s ...
. In France, ATTAC associates with many other
left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
causes.


Nestlégate

In 2008, the Swiss multinational food and beverage company
Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
was hit by a scandal which was later called Nestlégate by the media. Between the years 2003 and 2005, Nestlé hired the external Security company
Securitas AG Securitas AG is a Switzerland, Swiss family company providing security services with head office in Zollikofen, regional offices in Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Olten, St. Gallen, Thun and Zürich as well as 25 ot ...
to spy on the Swiss branch of Attac. Nestlé started the monitoring when Attac Switzerland decided to work on a critical book about Nestlé. In response to the Nestlégate, Attac Switzerland filed a lawsuit against Nestlé. The lawsuit was decided in favour of Attac in January 2013, as the personal rights of the observed were violated. They received a compensation for damages of 3000
Swiss francs The Swiss franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues banknotes and the f ...
each (about 3230 USD at the date of the proclamation of sentence).


See also

*
Alter-globalisation Alter-globalization (also known as alternative globalization or alter-mundialization—from the French alter- mondialisation—and overlapping with the global justice movement) is a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation and ...
*
Anti-globalisation The anti-globalization movement or counter-globalization movement, is a social movement critical of economic globalization. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist m ...
*
Clearstream Clearstream is a financial services company that specializes in the settlement of securities transactions and is owned by Deutsche Börse AG. It provides settlement and custody as well as other related services for securities across all asset cl ...
scandal, a
clearing house Clearing house or Clearinghouse may refer to: Banking and finance * Clearing house (finance) * Automated clearing house * ACH Network, an electronic network for financial transactions in the U.S. * Bankers' clearing house * Cheque clearing * Cl ...
(meta-bank) involved in one of the biggest financial scandals ever *
Currency transaction tax A currency transaction tax is a tax placed on the use of currency for various types of transactions. The tax is associated with the financial sector and is a type of financial transaction tax, as opposed to a consumption tax paid by consumers, th ...
*
Financial transaction tax A financial transaction tax (FTT) is a levy on a specific type of financial transaction for a particular purpose. The tax has been most commonly associated with the financial sector for transactions involving intangible property rather than real ...
*
Global financial system The global financial system is the worldwide framework of legal agreements, institutions, and both formal and informal economic actors that together facilitate international flows of financial capital for purposes of investment and trade financ ...
*
MRAP Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP; ) is a term for United States Armed Forces, United States military light tactical vehicles produced as part of the MRAP program that are designed specifically to withstand improvised explosive device (IE ...
, anti-racist NGO engaged in the creation of ATTAC *
Robin Hood tax The Robin Hood tax is a package of financial transaction taxes (FTT) proposed by a campaigning group of civil society non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Campaigners have suggested the tax could be implemented globally, regionally, or uni ...
*
Tobin tax A Tobin tax was originally defined as a tax on all spot conversions of one currency into another. It was suggested by James Tobin, an economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Tobin's tax was originally intended to penali ...
*
Ireland as a tax haven Ireland has been labelled as a tax haven or corporate tax haven in multiple financial reports, an allegation which the state has rejected in response. Ireland is on all academic " tax haven lists", including the , and tax NGOs. Ireland does no ...


References

* *


External links


ATTAC official web site

"Disarming the Markets"
editorial by
Ignacio Ramonet Ignacio Ramonet Miguez (born 5 May 1943) is a Spanish academic, journalist and writer who has been based in Paris for much of his career. After becoming first known for writing on film and media, he became editor-in-chief of ''Le Monde diplomatiq ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Association Pour La Taxation Des Transactions Pour L'aide Aux Citoyens Anti-globalization organizations Political and economic think tanks based in France Tax reform 1998 establishments in France Organizations established in 1998 Financial transaction tax