Brown wins cautious backing for transactions tax

Prime Minister Gordon Brown drew cautious support on Monday for his latest crusade to introduce a so-called "Tobin" tax on big financial transactions.

"There was some curiosity about Gordon Brown's proposals surrounding a financial levy" pushed at the G20 meeting in St Andrews, said Joaquin Almunia, European financial commissioner.

He was speaking after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers who "agreed to discuss this again in the coming months," said Almunia, whose body has already been mandated to explore options.

However, he stressed that Brown himself had underlined "the need to adopt a global position so as not to create disruptions to capital flows."

Spanish finance minister Elena Salgado, standing in for eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker, said the idea was like an environmental tax "where the polluter has to pay" and a "kind of insurance" against future systemic failure.

Just hours after Brown resurrected the Tobin idea in his Scottish homeland, the United States appeared to shoot it down in flames.

"No, that's not something that we're prepared to support," US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said.

The IMF is to report on a "better" solution to the G20 next April.