February 23, 2009 7:39AM # How European Governments Hate Low Taxes By [Doug Bandow](https://www.cato.org/people/doug-bandow) --- SHARE The European Union held a summit over the weekend at which the assembled politicoes announced a variety of steps to increase regulation of European financial markets. But that isn’t all. [Reports the *Daily Telegraph*:](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/4782765/EU-agrees-hedge-fund-controls.html) > The EU communique also called for punitive action against tax havens. “A list of uncooperative jurisdictions and a toolbox of sanctions must be devised as soon as possible,” it said. Ah, so now we see what is really important to European governments: squeezing more money out of their peoples. As Cato’s Dan Mitchell has oft pointed out, competition among taxing jurisdictions is good for everyone other than governments. Tax havens, so-called, are an important tool for promoting such competition. Similar efforts are underway in the U.S. with efforts to tax the internet, for instance. ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).