There will always be a healthy tug of war between European Union policymakers and the governments of the 27 national capitals.
Finance ministers can be particularly territorial and any mention of possible tax changes by Brussels officials is sure to raise hackles, something Ireland knows well from the years-long fight over its corporate tax rate.
Portuguese politician Maria Luís Albuquerque has sat on both sides of the table, as finance minister in the years after the financial crash, and since late last year as European commissioner for financial services.
[ EU takes another crack at capital markets reformOpens in new window ]
Ms Albuquerque took over the role from Ireland’s former commissioner, Mairead McGuinness.
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has asked her to come up with reforms to make it easier for money and investment capital to flow between EU states.
That would mean rewriting things like national insolvency laws and certain aspects of taxation to align EU members closer together. Governments and their finance ministers agree on the big picture in principle, but nobody wants to budge in pr
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