> I just wish they'd drop the absurd pretense that the EU is somehow capable of imposing their provincial laws on foreign companies with no physical presence in the EU.
They aren't capable of doing that, if those companies do not do business within the EU. As soon as those companies have the power to negatively impact EU citizens, however, the EU has the power to protect those citizens.
> The EU seems to be overstepping its bounds and trying a powergrab, last two times I voted YES on EU referendums we had clear promises that EU will not involve themselves in a members tax policy, i feel I was lied to.
The EU sees the beneficial tax rebates for Apple to be an unfair state subsidy under EU competition laws.
In the eyes of the EU, this is not about tax policy, this is about competition policy, something the EU very much has an interest in having a say in (sort of the whole purpose of the EU, if you think about it).
> I really like things as they are and I'm just not interested in change here.
The kind of change the EU is primarily pursuing is of the monetary sort. They're looking to use fines against the US tech giants as a golden pot to raid to fill their $81 billion post Brexit budget hole. [1]
This will continue for many years. The EU will attempt to extract tens of billions of dollars in fines from US companies, as much as they can by any means they can for as long as they can.
The proper US response is to begin targeting prominent EU companies to damage financially. The US economy will recover much faster than the EU economy - as with the great recession - and that should be used to maximum advantage.
> I’m sort of shocked that the EU is allowing export outside the EU during the initial rollout.
What can we say? Once upon a time there was a belief that the world could come together and solve it problems if there just was some good will among the countries of the world.
This spirit still survives in the EU leadership that have spent so much time working for that on the European scale, so they simply have too much faith in international collaboration.
> The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations.
For how long, I wonder, given the megacorps have financial resources on par with entire nations, and the EU has been taking some pretty strong stances on topics of interest to them? Or will the megacorps at some point just decide Europe's no longer worth the trouble to operate in (probably not the worst outcome)?
> However, if this law is upheld in court, then I think we can consider the EU a failed experiment
What an unexpected conclusion you are jumping into. I think EU is the only capable authority in the world so far who is not afraid to challenge big corporations in favour of people. (mobile charges, customer rights, Google, Intel, Telefonica, etc..)
I completely agree that there are big problems around EU when it comes to lobbyists around Brussels. In my personal opinion they should be banned from influencing EU decisions. But, just because there is an issue with the car, does not mean that we need to burn the car completely. Better option is to help fixing the car.
> I’m very much opposed to enforcing EU values and views to 3rd parties.
I’m not at all opposed to the EU trying to regulate companies providing services to their citizens.
If you only regulate providers in the EU it’s a pointless exercise from the start, even if you don’t have a lot of ways to actually enforce your regulations.
>We need to wake the fuck up in the EU and start aggressively building European-based competitors
Good luck with that. Europe doesn't provide the environment (neither culturally nor financially) needed for these types of companies to arise.
And if you want 'state planned' tech companies: What happened to the EU funded Google-killer again?
If Europe doesn't reform itself and makes it less punishing for people to start, grow, fail, start again businesses then Europe will be left behind.
And tbh. I don't believe Europe can reform. Because the problems are so deeply entrenched in European societies that it would take a herculean effort to change things. Something no one is willing to do.
So all we have left is old money industry. But that won't keep up as alive for ever...
> No, the EU is not acting this way because they want an "EU Apple". Nobody over here has the illusion of any such mega corporation ever coming out of the EU.
i don’t know what case you’re making, but “sore losers” isn’t a winning one.
> Those mega-corporations are solely coming from non-free regions.
all of them come from a place that is a lot more free than any country in the EU: the US.
> The EU are doing this because they wish to protect the basic rights of their citizens.
> there is also a lot of money thrown in businesses in the form of EU subsidies.
And that money is mostly a complete waste. EU money comes with so many strings and baggage that you are either big enough and have the resources to deal with it (and thus you don't actually need it), or you are small and make it your entire business model to live off EU funds and not produce anything of value ever.
trust me, you didn't see what the eu already gone through, just to keep existing.
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