Presseschau: Cheque mate? EU’s fight with US corporate giants

The EU’s relationship to US-corporations

12/09/2016

EURANET PLUS

Cheque mate? EU’s fight with US corporate giants, by Brian Maguire

„Is Europe locked in a low-grade trade war with the United States? A series of decisions by EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, including a 13 billion euros fine of Apple for its Irish tax arrangements, have given this impression.

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Fabio De Masi: „What the US is complaining about is that Europe is pretty much launching some war on US-coorporations. This is something they have always done themselves historically. They have protected their industries, they helped them becoming key global players so we shouldn’t be afraid of that arguement.“

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Martina Michels: „Der Copyright-Text, der ja lediglich ein Entwurf, das muss man dazu sagen, deutet darauf hin, dass eine ganz konkrete Sicht auf die Urheberrechtsreform gibt, nämlich aus der Sicht der großen Global Player wo die alten großen Riesen, wie die Pressevertreter, die Verlage, gegen die neuen Player wie Google und die anderen Anbieter Sturm laufen und ihre Pfründe sichern wollen.“

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Fabio De Masi: „Well, I don’t think so, because – maybe apart from Bernie Sander – most of the presidential canditates like Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump are competing who makes the best offer in terms of taxes to these multinational corporations. Apple and all these companies have very clearly said, that they will only repatriate the money – „bring it back home“- to the United States if they lower the local tax rates. That is part of the problem because the multinational corporations tell us in Europe „you cannot tax us because we’re going to tax in the United States – one distant day – and in the united States they say „we don’t bring it back if you don’t lower the tax rates“. So they play us out against each other, but I think that corporate lobbies are so strong in the united States unless Bernie Sanders is shown up in the next elections I don’t see much change here.“

The full feature is available online at EuranetPlus on youtube.