In a letter sent on 10 April to European Commissioners Stéphane Séjourné, Valdis Dombrovskis and Henna Virkkunen, responsible respectively for prosperity and industrial strategy, economy and productivity and tech sovereignty, security and democracy, UNI Europa, the European trade union federation representing seven million workers in the services sector, calls for introducing a “comprehensive digital services tax”, nicknamed the “Amazon Tax”.
The trade union federation presents this tax as a countermeasure to “the escalating trade tensions between Europe and the United States“, arguing that “US digital companies in particular [like Amazon] enjoy unfair economic advantages within the European Union”.
“We urge the European Commission to take decisive action to address these disparities by implementing an “Amazon Tax”, a comprehensive digital services tax on digital companies operating within the EU to level the playing field and protect Europe’s social model based on social dialogue and collective bargaining”, writes UNI.
The idea of a tax on digital services from the United States was revived by French President Emmanuel Macron following the announcement of tariffs by US President Donald Trump, but it divides member countries.
At this stage, the Commission is being very cautious on the subject, preferring to accommodate America rather than impose fines, notably by postponing the conclusions of its investigations launched within the framework of the DSA and DMA (see EUROPE 13452/4, 13603/27).
See the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/gf8 (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)