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The issue is whether tax is a sovereign issue subject to unanimous voting at council or a competition law issue subject to administrative control by the commission .... Ireland wants tax to remain a sovereign issue ... most member states but not Luxembourg want to at least put minimum thresholds in place to stop unfair tax competition .....
there is no reason Ireland should look to the Eu to finance its fishing fleet ... Ireland to my knowledge has traditionally prioritize agriculture over fishing and has traditionally not being a fish eating nation one reason .... although secondary ... why the potato famines had such a negative impact ... and of course in no way a justification for allowing them to occur .... yet another stain on our colonialist past ... apologies ......
Finally if Ireland was to leave the Eu and thus lose the multinational component of its economic miracle ..... I think it would be generally regressive first the country .... I don t know it that well and my memories of visiting it in the seventies was that quaintness aside it was very very poor .... and although you may regret the positives that have been lost in the newer multiCultural society you appear to have produced .... there is nothing romantic or nice about going to the toilet in a ditch in the rain and cold (I refer to an earlier message you wrote) .... !
I don't disagree with SirNigelW but the EU does not apply the rules evenly across the board.
For example, there are major benefits in setting up holding companies in Luxembourg where there are negligible or no taxes. In fact, Luxembourg, among others in Europe, is definitely a tax haven an accusation they are happy to make against Ireland but shut their eyes to worse abuses in their own backyards. And what is the population of Luxembourg? 626,000 people, about half the population of Dublin, and it, like other midget states in the EU, has full EU state representation with all the benefits they can give it.
And here is the EU having a go at Ireland for the way it has conducted itself economically over the last decades only to find it has turned a blind eye to worse abuses in other member states as is clear from that list of competition cases I listed.
It is not a level playing field and the EU is in for a major shock when Britain leaves the EU because the UK will be giving similar or better tax advantages to Northern Ireland, Scotland and possibly Northern England who will then be in direct competition with Ireland with tax benefits than are currently available in Ireland and the EU can squirm but it will have no ability to stop England doing it.
Do you know that Ireland has a fishing quota each year for 1.1 million tons of fish worth about €1.2billion. Last year, Ireland landed fish worth €290m which is about 25% of its quota. Now why is the Irish fishing industry performing so poorly? Because there is no funding from the EU because they want all the fishing rights for themselves.
As I say, it is not one rule for all in the EU. It is biased in favour of France, Germany and a few of their pals to the detriment of countries like Ireland which is why they are causing trouble aka Apple.
It is a pity Ireland suffered its Celtic Tiger demise otherwise I would expect we would be leaving the EU along with the UK.
Sir Nige, there's another way of looking at this. Ireland's lower corporation tax receipts is one of the contributing factors in its underfunding of healthcare. 45% of Irish people have private health insurance, compared to only 10% in the UK where the NHS is better funded (note: "better", not "well").
Multinationals employ 22% of the Irish workforce, but they indirectly support many more jobs. There has also been a transfer of expertise into indigenous companies, particularly in the tech sector. It is a virtuous cycle. Ireland has many ills, but attracting FDI with a low tax regime and a young educated population has been one of its roaring successes over the past four decades (at least until we decided we could all get rich by selling houses to each other).
Competition rules are one thing. But should the EU dictate the balance between health funding and private insurance costs? Irish people are used to high wages and high costs. They also suffer the slings and arrows of the global economy by having such an open economy themselves. Why should those trade offs not be allowed to be decided in Ireland? The French couldn't implement such a regime because there'd be a mutiny when various state social supports were defunded. That's their choice. This is ours.
All true .... sometimes one feels one should take a stand but in reality you are just being sucked into the populist maelstrom ....!
Sir Nigel, may I say that your response to Manyanas generalist comment was both well thought out and worded. Be careful tho unless you intend to dethrone ps as Manyanas foil.
Manyana, in times of lockdown your unnecessary squabbles can be quite hilarious. More so if you were closer to age 16.
Nearly everything is up for debate Juan and if you don t support competition as an economic policy that is fine .. there are as with everything arguments in favour and against ....
but the application of competition law rules to state aid ... outside the context of national emergencies (which the EU treaties take into account) ... cannot be dismissed as stupid ..... you would have to go a bit deeper than that ...... its a policy necessary to have a functioning single market ...... so if you want to have a single market then it has to be constructed on rules ... and of course every member state tries to attract industry some more desperately than others such as you Irish guys, the Dutch and Luxembourg and now the Germans as a means of protecting their industry in he context of the present economic turmoil ..... however you are only allowed to do so in the context of the EU law competition rules and there are courts that decide whether the rules are being respected ... (having courts and judges is not stupid either but necessary for a functioning democracy ) ....
are you perhaps dismissing the application of rules for the management of a society as stupid ..... seems a tad imperious ... even Trump like but thinking about it I recall in the past you seemed to have a certain admiration for "The Donald"
Perhaps you are one of these chaps, like Trump in fact , who are all in favour of rules as long as they don't apply to you at which time they conveniently become stupid and ridiculous .... not unlike our present PM who incidentally also wants the benefits of being in a single market without respecting the rules on which it is constructed .... and interestingly enough he also finds the EU stupid because they are resisting this approach .....
life unfortunately is complicated and complex and however attractive and satisfying in the moment knee jerk reactions might be .... unfortunately they normally only make the issue or problem they address worse ... at which time the charlatan brands the problem rather than their childlike knee jerk reaction as stupid ...... and the clever who in the short term profit thereby, and the foolish who prefer the chimera of easy solutions over respect of the rules, can always be relied on to follow the populist of the moment .... all that to say ... it is a little simplistic to brand state aid rules as stupid ......
Yes but just because Ireland charged lower corporation tax than other EU countries and hence attracted major American corporations it got up the nose of the EU where many of their members were also using similar tactics.
Do you know how many competition cases are up for debate in the EU? Have a look at the following list and then say it is not stupid.
https://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_sa_by_date
Thanks for the explanation, Manyana.
I was wondering what was going on.
I've never seen the corrected version.
At least it proves that you can't believe everything you read in the newspapers.
It’s not ridiculous ... it’s called state aid and contravenes competition law .... an Anglo Saxon invention .... if indirectly the Irish government aided Apple then Apple will have to pay the tax money ... if it doesn t amount to state aid they don t have to pay it back ... simple really and not ridiculous at all ....
Yes, the Vestiger case against Apple is quite interesting. If she wins the case, Ireland get $15 billion windfall. But both Ireland and Apple say she is wrong and Apple did not get special tax treatment from Ireland.
So if she wins her case, Ireland get a windfall but if Ireland and Apple, who say she is wrong, win the case it ends up with Ireland getting nothing and Apple gets a hefty $15 billion which currently sits in an escrow account waiting a decision.
Its so ridiculous that you could not make it up.
Longwait,
Magic. They corrected the item last night and put out a new message without the 3m error which I gave the link to this morning only now they have reinstated the item they put out originally with the error.
They must be on the Guinness or something stronger.
Longwait,
You will notice if you follow the link you have given that the text in your item is not now included.
They did a hasty job and correct the mistakes identified in your piece.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/providence-resources-reports-26-8m-loss-for-2019-1.4269849
'The annual results show that Providence was down to its last €710,000 in cash at the end of 2019. It raised further financing from shareholders and subsequently secured commitments for a further €3 million from Norwegian group, SpotOn Energy, which will see it through to April 2021, it said.'
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/providence-resources-reports-26-8m-loss-for-2019-1.4269849
with some people the EU is always to blame ..... its easier that way
Re your earlier thoughts, it is absolutely incorrect to say that ‘the EU are still stopping Ireland claiming the 15 billion’.
In fact it is completely the other way around.
I see the later article from the Irish Times does not mention the amount SpotOn paid other than to say that the second tranche has come through.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/providence-resources-reports-26-8m-loss-for-2019-1.4269849