Politico: “Europe should hope for a Trump victory”

A Trump win would immediately revive plans for more common EU debt for the bloc’s security and defense. That idea — initially pushed by Macron and supported by the EU’s new High Representative Kaja Kallas — had even won the tacit support of frugal Northern Europe, but it lost momentum after the French president’s election gambit. The shock of a second Trump term would undoubtedly rekindle it, not least because Germany — the country most reluctant to support Macron’s ideas — is also the country that fears losing America’s security guarantee most.

The same would be true for the Continent’s gloomy economic outlook. Former Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s diagnosis of an €800 billion-per-year investment gap can only be filled by more common financing. It also requires a different approach to EU-wide industrial and fiscal policy that, again, would start in Germany and spill over to rest of the EU — something that a trade war with Trump could help unlock.

Mujtaba Rahman

That may have been the case if Trump would have won a second term back in 2020, but I fear that now in 2024 and beyond the prospects of catalyzing European unity are much slimmer. European leaders have had another four years of ‘American leadership’ under Biden to lull them into complacency – I am using ‘leadership’ here in quotes as this was rather America pursuing its militaristic haphazard foreign policy and European leaders tagging along and pretending US interests perfectly match our own.

The Economist: “Ireland’s government has an unusual problem: too much money”

In September the European Court of Justice delivered a verdict in a long-running legal battle over whether Apple had benefited from unfair (and now closed) loopholes in Ireland’s tax code. As a result, the American tech firm will have to hand over €13bn ($14bn) to the Irish tax authorities, along with over €1bn of interest—an amount equivalent to 4.8% of the country’s annual national income. To the bemusement of other cash-strapped governments, the Irish authorities sided with Apple in its battles with Europe’s courts, arguing that the firm had done nothing wrong.

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Irish policymakers are aware that the tax base is narrow as well as bountiful. In 2022 just ten firms accounted for three-fifths of corporate-tax receipts. Moreover, corporation tax amounted to 27% of all receipts that year, more than double the oecd average. Recognising this vulnerability, the Irish government intends to treat the Apple windfall in the same way that Norway treated North Sea oil revenues: it will set up a sovereign-wealth fund. Two separate pots are being established. Ministers hope their combined value will reach €100bn by 2040, at which point they will start to spend the income generated.

The Economist

I have a rather straightforward answer if the Irish government doesn’t want – or know what to do with – this massive Apple fine: contribute this to the EU budget! It was after all the European Commission who fought this legal battle and won, while Ireland argued against it. And most of these profits on which Apple avoided taxes for years were generated in other EU countries, not on their operations in Ireland.