Oh please, not again!

I am experiencing a sense of déjà vu. Yesterday I was writing about the Common Fisheries Policy and Conservative incompetence and hypocrisy; members of a Russian spy-ring have been put on trial in the United States and today I find this headline in the Evening Standard: "Warning that levy will ‘devastate’ London’s art market". Yes, it's our old friend the droit de suite.

London's 's art market will be devastated if action is not taken to block the imposition of a European levy on sales, its leaders warn today.

A delay in imposing the tax on resales of modern art negotiated by the last Labour government will run out in 2012.

And the British Art Market Federation said action must be taken now to extend the delay or abolish the levy, known as droit de suite, as collectors will otherwise sell in Switzerland or New York to avoid the extra charges.

Reuters tells us that

British auction houses fear that an EU levy on works of art by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, due to be introduced in 2012, could undermine their position as world leaders in the field.

Here are a few links to postings I have done on the subject: September 2008, April 2008, where I list the considerable amount of literature I have produced on the subject over the years, January 2006 and December 2005. Groundhog day anyone?