European Union finance ministers were working Saturday on ways to ensure tougher banking supervision, and considering a bank levy to pay for banks that collapse in the future, hoping to prevent a repeat of the recent financial crisis which cost governments billions of euros, the Associated Press reported. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told reporters late Friday that she wanted all major financial groups to pay a fee «on the basis of the riskiest activities that they conduct.» «The riskier the activity, the more tax there would be,» she said. «You could call it a tax on risk.» Any levy on banks to pay into a fund to rescue lenders in future crises would be set up individually by the EU's 27 nations as there is no widespread support for a bigger European fund. Finance ministers or their deputies from Belgium, Ireland and Denmark were unable to travel to the two-day talks in Madrid after a volcanic ash cloud grounded most flights in northern Europe.
