Commission[3] (“EC”). In 2016, the EC’s Joint Research Centre calculated the
annual cost of this issue to amount to EUR 8.4 billion in foregone tax relief, costs
or reclaim procedures and opportunity costs. Numerous vast research reports,
recommendations, and even implementation packages spelling out what
standardized and unified relief procedures should look like, have brought no
unification, or even harmonization, in this field to the EU whatsoever. Looking at
the latest communication from the EC, “Completing the capital markets union by
2019”, released on March 8, 2018, what stands out is that the withholding tax
barrier is not mentioned once. Instead, as far as taxes are concerned, the EC
focuses solely on the common consolidated corporate tax base, its new crown