> 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.
> If they really think that why not just ask it to leave entirely?
I don't think that the french authorities think that, it is just my personal opinion. But it is good that at least some european authorities starts to kick back on their anti-competitive behavior.
>>If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follow its orders and won't really be separate.
Maybe the US company could be a holding which would "only" own 100% of its independent EU subsidiary (which would be its own legal entity, reporting in EU)?
> If every nation state operates by different rules that's not good for multi-national corporations.
Multi national corporations don’t really care whether the rules are homogenous or not, they’re big enough to do whatever they need to to sell their goods and services in whichever markets they want. The single market was actually more of a benefit for smaller companies, allowing them to sell to 500m people without having to worry about customs declarations, country specific safety certifications etc. There are many many examples of small producers having to stop selling to EU customers after Brexit because of the added cost and bureaucracy.
> This is a dangerous ruling that pushes the world further into the potential for trade wars by proxy.
Don't think trade wars applies. The reasons were given and I think they are correct. Personally I'm glad that the EU has the power to (at least a bit) influence such huge corporations.
> I think it's also worth mentioning that the EU's track record on tax issues and dealing with the large multinationals and their complex arrangements is awful. Just look at the hash they made of the VAT changes last year, which were supposedly going to have a beneficial effect by reducing multinational tax avoidance, but in fact did almost exactly the opposite, causing far more damage to smaller businesses than larger ones.
This is I think one of the few genuine substantial complaints against EU membership: the EU is very bad at dealing with small businesses, because they don't have time and money to get involved in the legislative process. Brussels is too far away.
> Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that.
I'm not sure a union with a democratically elected parliament is comparable to a social media corporation which answers to its shareholders?
> I believe tackling such a complex issue affecting many countries on a national level is a mistake.
This sounds like the main problem here, to me:
EU law makes it easy for a company to do business anywhere in EU and only pay taxes in its headquarters, on the assumption that it doesn't matter a lot where the company pays its taxes as long as it's inside the EU. But at the same time, EU law doesn't regulate corporate tax, so some countries can easily take advantage of that by lowering them (or completely removing them) so companies will be attracted there.
They are basically living as parasites to the other countries, and the only solution to that seems to be harmonizing taxes accross the EU.
Edit: could you explain the downvote a bit? I'm curious to hear what you don't like in what I said.
There have been non-binding votes to split it up. And they can tell them to split up or be banned from operating within the EU.
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