Despite a few dissident voices, MEPs gave a warm welcome on Wednesday 14 September to Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, when she explained to them the European Commission’s state aid decision about Apple in Ireland.
At the end of August, the Commission said that two tax rulings for Apple granted by Dublin in 1991 and 2007 gave the company an unfair advantage (see EUROPE 11612) and ordered repayment of the advantage, worth up to €13 billion plus interest.
Most MEPs welcomed the firm line taken by the commissioner – Neena Gill (S&D, United Kingdom), for instance, or Markus Ferber (EPP, Germany) praising what he described as her courageous and fair decision. "You dealt a blow to multinationals’ tax impunity", said Eva Joly (Greens/EFA, France).
Other MEPs did not appreciate what they see as the European Commission’s competition department trampling on tax legislation. The Commission’s decision must be legally challenged, said David Campbell Bannerman (ECR, UK), adding that the fight against corporate tax evasion should be subject to G20 and OECD measures. Irish MEP Brian Hayes (EPP) said that the Commission’s decision seemed to be based on political rather than legal arguments. He pointed out that the Commission reacts differently according to which member state is involved. Saying that Apple had paid its due amount of tax in Ireland, he said that it was possible that the €13 billion was owed to other member states and the question should be clarified.
The Commission has itself opened the door to this eventuality. European finance ministers asked the Commission in Bratislava last week to provide the information they require (see EUROPE 11621).
Vestager rejected accusations that her decision about Apple was politically motivated and that the Commission’s competition policy ran roughshod over member states’ tax policies. She said it was a question of having competition rules respected and that it was not a political decision. She added that it was member states’ job to ensure tax rules are respected, and that monitoring state aid could not adjust tax legislation. For that, she said, one had to take the wide door in everyone’s knowledge and awareness. There is nothing new, moreover, in the Commission’s decision to demand a retroactive reimbursement of state aid. One of the foundations of competition policy is that if an advantage has been granted, it must be recovered, said the former Danish finance minister, convinced that the Commission was simply following existing policy in this connection. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)