Shareholder voting is the cornerstone of good corporate governance - the means by which investors can exercise ultimate control over managers. Yet casting such votes often runs into obstacles in the European Union, especially when an investor is in one country and the company is in another. A proposed new EU law to remove many of those obstacles is an essential step in completing the single market.

The draft law, proposed by Charlie McCreevy, the internal market commissioner, has been more than a year in gestation. It has been through two rounds of consultation that have yielded overwhelmingly positive responses. The draft directive incorporates many of the points made during the course of the consultation.