As if it's not enough that England and France are battling for Europe's soccer championship this week — now their leaders are sniping over taxes, too.
While their teams face decisive matches in Ukraine,
British Prime Minister David Cameron ignited a stir while in Mexico at
the G-20 summit with a swipe at new French President Francois
Hollande’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy and large corporations to
help France tackle its deficit and pay for new public spending intended
to lift growth.
Cameron slammed Hollande’s tax-and-spend approach
to resolving the eurozone crisis in remarks before business leaders
widely reported in the press but so-far unconfirmed by Downing Street
officials.
“I think it’s wrong to have a completely uncompetitive
top rate of tax,” Cameron said ahead of a Group of 20 meeting of leaders
of the world’s largest economies in Los Cabos, Mexico.
Cameron
promised to “roll out the red carpet” for France’s wealthy and
businesses if Hollande’s government goes ahead with a campaign pledge to
increase the tax rate on earnings above €1 million ($1.26 million) to
75 percent.
Cameron said he’ll “welcome more French businesses to
Britain and they can pay tax in Britain and pay for our health service
and schools and everything else.”
France and Britain, rivals for
centuries, have been strong — if at times uncomfortable — allies since
the 20th century. As western Europe’s top military powers, they
cooperate closely on defense and were joint pillars of the NATO-led air
campaign that helped end Moammar Gadhafi’s reign in Libya.
The
allies still engage in regular bouts of verbal sniping, such as last
December when Cameron took a swipe at religious freedoms in France while
the French finance minister criticized the U.K. economy.
French authorities were quick to answer Cameron’s latest barbs.
“I
hope those were after-dinner comments and that (Cameron) wasn’t fully
conscious when he said them because those kinds of comments just aren’t
done,” Socialist lawmaker Claude Bartolone, a contender for speaker of
parliament, told the French radio station Europe-1.
The head of France’s communist party also hit back, saying it was “sad to see Britain’s ambition to be Europe’s tax haven.”
Cameron
“should have another ambition for his country than that,” Pierre
Laurent told French TV i-Tele. “In Europe the future is solidarity, not a
war of all against all where selfishness rules.”
Besides the 75
percent top tax rate, Hollande has pledged to crack down on tax breaks
and raise taxes on banks and oil companies while reducing taxes on small
and medium sized businesses.
