Since Germany bought stolen banking records and started investigating the Liechtenstein banking network for tax fraud, there have been increasing calls within the EU to end tax havens.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy that "We will support the French presidency's aims of tackling tax havens and states operating privileged tax systems with the aim of achieving harmonized taxation" only yesterday.

However, although it may seem like the big European nations are trying to control the banking set-ups of their smaller partners, there simply isn't the legal framework to force countries like Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Monaco to hand over the names of clients to foreign governments without the individual's consent.

This alone should ensure that tax havens remain existent, not to mention that too deep a probe may reveal things other EU countries (mentioning no names) would prefer to remain hidden.