Europe should press ahead with a tax on financial transactions even without international consensus, the German and French finance ministers said in a letter sent to the European Commission.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his French counterpart Francois Baroin urged in the letter that the European Council presidency put the issue on its agenda in coming months.

"Although the Toronto G20 meeting demonstrated that a global agreement is very difficult to achieve, we strongly believe that the implementation of a financial transaction tax (FTT) at the European level would be a crucial step on the path to reaching a global consensus in a way that does not affect European competitiveness," the letter said.

EU member Britain, home to Europe's biggest financial centre, opposes what is commonly dubbed a "Tobin tax" on transactions.

"If the euro area would like to have a banks levy, that's a matter for them. The UK will not be part of any euro area tax," a UK Treasury spokesman said on the sidelines of a meeting in southern France of finance ministers of the world's wealthiest nations.

The spokesman noted that Britain - which has a "stamp duty" tax on share trades - already had a levy on banks.

In response to a question from a legislator on Tuesday, UK Finance Minister George Osborne told Britain's parliament: "I can assure the right honourable gentleman that I am certainly opposed to any new European tax."

Unanimity would be required among EU states to impose a tax on a member country.

Schaeuble has said in the past that he favours pressing ahead with the tax within the 17-nation euro zone, but the letter made no mention of that, urging it be put in place "internationally or within the European Union".

Europe's top banks said the impact of a transaction tax needed to be understood.

"Many financial transactions are carried out on behalf of businesses that would bear the cost of the additional tax," said Simon Lewis, chief executive of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.-Reuters