Missing the right ingredient

"The ultimate aim of the Directive is to enable savings income in the form of interest payments made in one member state to beneficial owners who are individuals resident for tax purposes in another member state to be made subject to effective taxation in accordance with the laws of the latter member state." These are the words of Article 1 of Council Directive 2003/48/EC, the EU Savings Directive ("the directive"), which make clear the objective behind what has been a slow and painful process. This process arguably reached its conclusion on 1 July 2005 when the directive finally came i...