The Lord Mayor of the City of London David Wootton and the Cityof London Corporation"s Policy Chairman Stuart Fraser will thisweekend travel to Copenhagen for a two-day visit (27-28 November)in order to prepare for the forthcoming rotation of the EuropeanPresidency when Denmark will take over the reins from Poland.

The Lord Mayor and the Policy Chairman will be using this visitas an opportunity to speak with a number of high-level Danishpolicy makers, businesses and trade associations.

The Lord Mayor of the City of London commented:"The City"s standing as a world-leading financial hub is a majorasset to both the UK and Europe and it is something we must worktogether in partnership to maintain and enhance, particularly inlight of the uncertainty afflicting the global economy atpresent.

"It is important to know what agenda the next country to holdthe European Presidency will be pursuing and to feed in the City"sthoughts on current and future EU regulation before it takesoffice. That is why the City of London maintains a constantpresence in Brussels and the Danish Presidency will play a majorrole in shaping the direction of future European legislation."Stuart Fraser, Policy Chairman at the City of LondonCorporation, added:"We must remove the obstacles that stand in the way of jobs andgrowth. Strengthening the single market by promoting open marketsand free trade is vital to drive the European economyforward. "The real danger is that closer integration within the Eurozonefollowing the crisis could leave us on the outside looking in. Ifthis came to pass the proposed Europe-wide Financial TransactionTax (FTT) would simply be the tip of the iceberg when it comes todamaging regulation.

"The European Commission"s own impact assessment of thisproposal highlights that of the "57bn it would raise across the EU,"40bn would come from the UK. This is in essence a political tax onLondon and the UK.

"And furthermore between 70 and 90 per cent of all derivativestrading could move outside of the European Union, together withhundreds of thousands of jobs. Driving that volume ofinternationally mobile business outside of Europe defeats the wholepurpose of the FTT by losing more money than it raises in revenues.

New York and other financial centres would be delighted if Europeshot itself in the foot through the lack of equivalence at theheart of this proposal.

"That is why, if European policymakers truly feel that atransaction tax is vital to shoring up our financial system, theymust " as the UK government has already made clear " seek to createa global consensus through the Group of 20."