WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A European Parliament delegation visit to Washington revealed a split within Europe over whether each country would support implementing the so-called "Volcker rule," a legislative proposal on Capitol Hill that would bar big commercial banks from making speculative proprietary derivatives and stock investments for their own accounts.

"Proprietary trading would be a question for the larger institutions. We are not currently, to my knowledge, trying to ban that," said Wolf Klinz, chairman of the European Parliament's special committee on the financial, economic and social crisis.

The Volcker rule proposal -- named after ex-Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker, who chairs President Barack Obama's economic-advisory panel -- would also cap the size of big banks and force financial institutions to divest hedge funds and private-equity units.

However, Kay Swinburne, a member of the panel from the United Kingdom, said the U.K. backs some version of the Volcker rule.

"With regards to proprietary trading, they [U.K.] are one area of Europe who believe the Volcker rule makes some sense," added Swinburne. "I don't think it will be a complete separation, but the direction the U.K. is heading is looking at separately capitalizing proprietary-trading desks and pricing in risk. The U.K. believes strongly that the proprietary traders need to have some more light shed on them."

Swinburne also said that it was possible a recommendation on the Volcker rule could be done through capital-requirement directives from the European Union, but that Britain was not going to wait for "the rest of the world to catch up."

A provision in the Volcker rule that would require big banks to divest private-equity and hedge-fund divisions is not relevant for most of Europe, according to Klinz. "Some banks have very small private-equity arms, but it is negligible, I would say," he said.

It's unclear how strong the Volcker rule itself will be in the United States when lawmakers on Capitol Hill complete their work on sweeping bank reform later this month. So far, a House bank-reform bill only permits bank regulators to impose these restrictions at their own volition. The Senate bill, for its part, is slightly tougher and requires bank regulators to conduct a study on the Volcker rule and follow its recommendations.

As members from both chambers reconcile the two versions, a tougher Volcker-rule provision introduced by Carl Levin, the Democratic senator from Michigan, could still be in play. One possible scenario: Bring it in to replace another controversial measure in the bill that requires big banks to spin off swaps desks into well-capitalized affiliates.

Global bank tax is dead

Swinburne said the United Kingdom will press ahead with plans to impose a new tax on banks even after G-20 finance ministers dropped plans for a worldwide levy after a meeting in Busan, South Korea over the weekend.

"It became quite clear over the weekend that, the U.K., if they can find a method of implementing, would go ahead with a banking levy regardless of whether everyone else moved with them. They felt it important to the stability of their banking system," she commented.

Finance ministers at the meeting in Busan scrapped the plan in the face of opposition from Canada, which did not bail out its banks during the financial crisis, as well as Japan and China.

Europe's Klinz said that it seemed very unlikely that the G-20 countries could agree on a common approach, but added that the continent could still work out some sort of tax. "We know from G-20 meeting that there will not be a G-20 common approach, most likely. In Europe, the position is still very much in favor setting up a fund to make financial sector pay in case of another financial crisis, and also to pay a tax on financial transactions."