The EU Savings Tax Directive: blocked by Luxembourg

The EU Savings Tax Directive, a scheme to provide transparency of cross-border income, is full of loopholes. Efforts are underway to patch them up, and sharpen the directive, which is despite all its faults an excellent initiative. Now an informed correspondent of ours has just sent us this:

(Regarding) the EU savings tax directive: it seems to be totally blocked , essentially by Luxembourg who have vetoed any progress on the dicussions. Austria is following. although Lux seems to be leading on this position.

Therefore, no expectiations for the directive to be discussed this year..

It's important to identify the culprits.