EU - what's next?

The EU General Court on Wednesday overturned the landmark 2016 decision by EU competition czar Margrethe Vestager that Ireland should claw back €13 billion in unpaid taxes plus interest from Apple.

The Apple decision was the keystone — partly because of the eye-watering sums involved — of an EU campaign to crack down on tax avoidance and stop countries from offering sweetheart deals to multinationals.

Vestager's defeat in the appeal of the case by Ireland and Apple comes at a delicate time politically. The failure of her team to win a case that was seen as a big European strategic priority could put her on the back foot in the face of increasing criticism of EU competition enforcement from Paris and Berlin.

Both the French and Germans are ramping up pressure on her to push the competition rule book in a more geopolitical direction, hoping to forge EU champions in the face of U.S. and Chinese rivals, but the Apple case is fast turning into a textbook study of how hard it is to marry strategic ambitions with highly technical legal investigations.

Vestager's decision in 2016 argued that, by not taxing the bulk of Apple’s global profits that were funneled through Ireland, Dublin was effectively granting an illegal subsidy to the iPhone maker. That subsidy could then be tackled by using the EU's rules on state aid.

The judges on Wednesday did not challenge the use of the state aid tool but argued that Brussels had not sufficiently proved its case. “The Commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that [Apple was granted an illegal advantage],” the court said in a statement.

The General Court added, "The Commission was wrong to declare that [two Apple subsidiaries in Ireland] had been granted a selective economic advantage and, by extension, state aid." Establishing "selective advantage" is a key part of any state aid case, and it was necessary to show that Apple received a tax perk that would have been unavailable to other companies.

Competition policy is supposed to be one of the EU's strongest weapons to drive through overarching political priorities, and it is a growing worry for the Commission that the Apple decision forms part of a broader chain of losses, in which the EU court is increasingly rejecting Brussels' state aid decisions over failings in the legal argumentation. The court accepts that it is legitimate to use state aid law to pursue tax cases, but notes failings in the Commission's execution.

Mór Thököly wrote:uh, kakava koalicija...

Tonight my party voted against maternity payments and against a living wage and collective bargaining for precarious workers. I’ve no information on why workers rights weren’t defended by the Green Party. Maternity payments were ‘unconstitutional’ if anyone can shed light on that

— Lorna Bogue (@LornaBogue) July 16, 2020

ćaća wrote:Ljudi generalno slabo znaju koliko je irsko društvo inače grozno.

Јанош Винету wrote:Зависи где си. Велики градови су супер, али може да ти се деси да упаднеш у неку АфДовску пропалу рупу која држи натписе из 33ће. Тамо стварно преподне мрзе саме себе а поподне цео свет.

Usvojili smo budžet za idućih sedam godina. U Hrvatsku donosimo 22 milijarde evra koje su garancija brzog privrednog oporavka i daljeg ravnomjernog razvoja zemlje - napisao je Plenković na rano jutros Tviter nalogu.
Lideri zemalja članica EU postigli su nakon pet dana maratonskih pregovora u Briselu dogovor o planu oporavka EU teškom 750 milijardi evra i sedmogodišnjem budžetu od 1.074 milijarde evra.
Plan za oporavak od 750 milijardi evra predviđa 390 milijardi bespovratne pomoći i 360 milijardi zajmova.
(Srna)

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E, donosi kući pare za oporavak....treba da piše da se zadužuju 22milijarde...EU će se ZADUŽITI za pare kod internacionalnih poverilaca. Dakle, kiselo groždje....te pare se moraju sa kamatama vratiti. Propast EU je sad očigledna i mojoj babi u “pržogrnci”...

Erős Pista wrote:Ali - "dakle kiseko grozdje" 

Vasa Čokrljan wrote:Pa lepo kaže