{"id":14485,"date":"2025-04-12T19:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T19:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/14485\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T19:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T19:00:14","slug":"ireland-will-resist-eu-trade-tax-on-us-tech-firms-says-taoiseach-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/14485\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland will \u2018resist\u2019 EU trade tax on US tech firms, says Taoiseach \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republic would oppose a European Union <\/a>tax on US technology companies in any escalation of a trade war between the union and the United States, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said in an interview with The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast.<\/p>\n

Asked about a warning from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen <\/a>on Friday that the EU could hit the big tech firms such as Meta, Google and Facebook with a special tax \u2013 \u201ca levy on the advertising revenues of digital services\u201d \u2013 as part of \u201cretaliatory measures\u201d if trade negotiations failed, Mr Martin responded: \u201cWe would resist that.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added that it would cause damage to \u201ca significant sector\u201d in the State.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0European Union could ‘impose levy on US tech multinational advert revenue’ Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Martin suggested that the commission was signalling to Washington that it had a \u201cbazooka\u201d at its disposal in the shape of special powers to take action against US firms. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I suspect that the president of the commission is saying to America, \u2018look, that\u2019s there\u2019, that there\u2019d be pressure on us to use this if we don\u2019t get a satisfactory outcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Mr Martin also added that the commission \u201chas a different agenda as well, of course, that it wants to create its own resources\u201d and the tax could create a revenue stream. <\/p>\n

\"\"Miche\u00e1l Martin interview: Ireland will \u2018resist\u2019 EU tech tax <\/p>\n

He said tech companies were already \u201cangry with Europe for what they perceive to be excessive regulation and antipathy from Europe towards them … I think if you just throw another tax on them, you really are putting petrol on fire.\u201d <\/p>\n

On Saturday, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe also expressed opposition to the idea of a levy on tech companies, saying it would have \u201ca harmful effect on our economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland has not supported the use of digital sales taxes (DSTs) in the past and that remains our view,\u201d Mr Donohoe told reporters in Warsaw where he was chairing a Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers. <\/p>\n

Ireland wanted to make sure the EU reached a united view on a set of measures that \u201cgets the balance right\u201d between responding to the US threats without causing \u201cundue harm\u201d to members states\u2019 economies, he continued.<\/p>\n

While Ireland understood all measures should be assessed, Mr Donohoe said: \u201cOur view is that DSTs would have a harmful effect on our economy and in doing that would also not get us to a place that we need to have a de-escalation, and find an agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a signal of support to US pharmaceutical companies in the Republic, Mr Martin said he would be \u201csympathetic\u201d to the efforts of big pharma companies to protect the lucrative years-long intellectual property (IP) window before drug patents expire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the companies would contest that the window for exploitation of IP research, basically, is narrowing too much and that needs to be broadened,\u201d said Mr Martin. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be sympathetic to that. Historically, I have been, because I think you need investment in pure R&D [research and development] to produce a new pipeline of drugs. Ultimately, when you get beyond the window of exploitation [it] becomes a generic drug.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said that pharma companies were \u201cvery, very worried\u201d that they would be hit with new tariffs by the Trump administration, but he hopes that pharma will be included in trade negotiations between the US and the EU \u2013 which would mean new tariffs would be unlikely while that process was under way.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Minister for Trade Simon Harris has said Europe would negotiate with the US \u201cfrom a position of strength\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEurope has many strengths for a market of 460 million people, and of course, there are lots of tools available at our disposal,\u201d said Mr Harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland doesn\u2019t want to see us go there … and certainly the tone I was getting in both Washington 24\/48 hours ago and the tone and engagement that I get across the European Union suggests now is the moment to sit down and negotiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the US president implemented and then backtracked on much of his ‘Liberation Day’ plans upending global markets in the process <\/p>\n

Mr Harris said Europe needed \u201cto continue to stay calm and measured in our response\u201d. <\/p>\n

Other voices in Europe also urged caution and moderation in the EU approach. <\/p>\n

While France is seen as supportive of the European Union going after tech multinationals in any future tariff retaliation, the union\u2019s other big beast, Germany, is urging caution. <\/p>\n

German finance minister J\u00f6rg Kukies on Friday noted European businesses are hugely reliant on US tech services. \u201cIn many areas of digital services, especially for the corporate sector, if you look at data centres, if you look at the cloud … there simply aren\u2019t \u2013 unfortunately \u2013 sufficient alternatives to the offerings by the American digital industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic would oppose a European Union tax on US technology companies in any escalation of a trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[32,2000,299,5187,2557,600,867,9037,598,681,10057,1470,1220,1605],"class_list":{"0":"post-14485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-commission","13":"tag-facebook","14":"tag-google","15":"tag-inside-politics","16":"tag-meta","17":"tag-micheal-martin","18":"tag-pharma","19":"tag-twitter","20":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","21":"tag-x"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114326537923671579","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}