The Irish Government should recuse itself from negotiating legislation that touches on digital policy and corporate tax in Brussels during its Council of the EU presidency, given its “questionable track record” and cozy relationship with tech multinationals, a group of over 80 academics rightly says in an open letter to the Irish Government.
Rebalance Now provided logistical support for this initiative by academics.
You find the letter here and posted below. We will update signatories on an ongoing basis:
Call on Ireland to recuse itself from digital and fiscal files during its presidency of the European Union
Ireland took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July. During this six-month period, Europe will renegotiate its digital rulebook and its corporate tax rules. As Council President, Ireland will chair these negotiations and decide what matters are discussed.
Given Ireland’s questionable track record regarding the protection of EU digital rights and the EU’s fiscal base that we synthesize below, we the undersigned call on Ireland to recuse itself from any role in these two areas during the Irish presidency of the European Union.
Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok, and X all selected Ireland to be the location of their EU headquarters. This turned the Irish Data Protection Commission into the primary data watchdog for the whole of EU.
This responsibility has not been matched by effective enforcement. After ten years of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Ireland has yet to conclude a single EU-wide inquiry into Google. In 2023, Ireland took the extraordinary step of suing every other EU data protection authority at EU court in Luxembourg, seeking an annulment of an order that mandated Ireland to investigate Meta’s use of people’s most intimate data.
Recent developments also raise questions about the independence of Ireland’s digital governance. The current Data Protection Commissioner previously served as Meta’s chief lobbyist in Ireland. Additionally, in the run-up to the Presidency, Foreign Minister Helen McEntee posed with a Meta lobbyist, following their meeting to discuss priorities for Ireland’s upcoming Presidency.
Ireland’s tax policy is similarly troubling. It has helped multinationals to avoid paying tax in other European countries. Most notably, the European Commission decided in 2016 that Apple must pay €13 billion plus interest in back taxes that it had evaded between 2004-2014 by using the ‘Double Irish’ scheme to shift profits from other EU countries to Ireland, which taxed it effectively at mere 0.005% in the final year of the scheme. Following international pressure, in 2014, the Irish government announced it would abolish the widely used scheme. The EU courts confirmed the 2016 tax avoidance finding in 2024. However, Apple appears to have rebuilt a tax planning scheme through Ireland avoiding a further €20+ billion in EU taxes since 2016.
In 2025, Dublin-headquartered Chinese clothing giant Temu appeared to be using a scheme in which tax residency does not match the business location, reminiscent of the “Double Irish”. There is good reason to believe that Ireland continues to facilitate tax arbitrage by multinational corporations that impoverishes Europe. European Public Prosecutor’s Office staff raised serious concern about money laundering and criminal activity facilitated through an Irish tax planning scheme.
In short, Ireland’s reliance upon giant non-EU firms creates insurmountable conflicts of interest, as evidenced by the country’s track record in the area of data regulation and taxation.
We expect that Ireland will recuse itself from any role in these two areas during its presidency and as a practical matter, we propose therefore, that the re-negotiation of any relevant files is run by next country in line for the presidency – Lithuania.
First signatures in alphabetical order:
Asst. Prof. Abeba Birhane, Trinity College Dublin
Prof. Alberto Alemanno, HEC Paris
Dr. Francesco Brancaccio, Sciences Po
Prof. Benedetta Brevini, University of Sydney and KU Leuven
Dr. Anna Bon, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Prof. Florian Butollo, Goethe Universitat Frankfurt
Prof. Joanna Bryson, Hertie School
Assoc. Prof. David Carroll, The New School
Assoc. Prof. Valeria Cirillo, University of Bari Aldi Moro
Dr. Matthew Cole, University of Sussex
Dr. Rosie Collington, Copenhagen Business School
Prof. Nick Couldry, London School of Economics
Prof. Kati Cseres, ACELG, University of Amsterdam
Assoc. Prof. Eileen Culloty, Dublin City University
Dr. Gavin Daly, Technological University Dublin
Visiting Fellow Pat de Brun, University College Dublin
Prof. Cédric Durand, University of Geneva
Prof. Lilian Edwards, Newcastle University
Dr. Timur Ergen, Universität Bremen
Prof. Carl Gaigné, French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment
Prof. Amandine Garde, University of Liverpool
Dr. Craig Gent, London School of Economics
Dr. Paolo Gerbaudo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Emeritus Prof. Carlo Ghezzi, Politecnico di Milano
Dr. Esther Görnemann, Weizenbaum Institute
Assoc. Prof. Inge Graef, Tilburg University
Prof. Dario Guarascio, Sapienza University
Prof. Nuno Guimarães, ISCTE, University Institute of Lisbon
Prof. Seda Gürses, Delft University of Technology
Prof. Hamed Haddadi, Imperial College London
Prof. Hugo Harari-Kermadec, Orléans University
Prof. Manfred Hauswirth, Technical University Berlin
Prof. Natali Helberger, University of Amsterdam
Prof. Jason Hickel, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Asst. Prof. Soheil Human, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Assoc. Prof. Kristina Irion, University of Amsterdam
Prof. Rainer Kattel, IIPP, University College London
Dr. Anthony Kelly, University College Dublin
Asst. Prof. Konrad Kollnig, Maastricht University
Emeritus Prof. Douwe Korff, London Metropolitan University
Emeritus Prof. Jeff Kramer, Imperial College London
Assoc. Prof. Filippo Lancieri, Georgetown Law
Assoc. Prof. Thibault Laurentjoye, Aalborg University Business School
Prof. Vili Lehdonvirta, Aalto University
Dr. Veiko Lember, Tallin University of Technology
Prof. Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol
Prof. Tobias Lock, Maynooth University
Dr. Rehab Massoud, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Prof. Mariana Mazzucato, IIPP, University College London
Dr. Patrick McEvoy, Technological University Dublin
Dr. Linda Monsees, Institute of International Relations Prague
Prof. Daniel Mügge, University of Amsterdam
Dr. Nessa Ní Chasaide, Maynooth University
Prof. Guido Noto La Diega, University of Strathclyde
Prof. Bashar Nuseibeh, City St George’s, University of London
Dr. Andrew Ó Baoill, University of Galway
Asst. Prof. Cian Ó Concubhair, Maynooth University
Prof. Seán Ó Riain, Maynooth University
Prof. Barry O’Sullivan, University College Cork
Prof. Ugo Pagano, University of Sienna
Prof. Ronen Palan, City Universitat of London
Dr. Harshvardhan Pandit, Trinity College Dublin
Dr. Charis Papaevangelou, University of Amsterdam
Assoc. Prof. Edemilson Paraná, University College Dublin
Dr. Alex Pazaitis, Researcher, Tallinn University of Technology
Dr. Dominik Piétron, Goethe University Frankfurt
Prof. Jens Prüfer, Tilburg University and University of East Anglia
Dr. Joel Rabinovich, King’s College London
Dr. Courtney Radsch, Georgetown University
Prof. Aidan Regan, University College Dublin
Assoc. Prof. Cecilia Rikap, IIPP, University College London
Prof. Viktoria Robertson, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien
Asst. Prof. Gavin Robinson, Leiden University
Assoc. Prof. Luc Rocher, University of Oxford
Adj. Prof. Johnny Ryan, University College Dublin
Asst. Prof. Cristiana Santos, Utrecht University
Dr. Anya Schiffrin, Columbia University
Prof. Dr. Ute Schmid, University of Bamberg
Prof. Eugenia Siapera, University College Dublin
Dr. Nick Srnicek, King’s College London
Prof. Zephyr Teachout, Fordham University
Prof. Matthias Thiemann, Sciences Po
Prof. José-Ignacio Torreblanca, UNED University, Spain
Assoc. Prof. Carissa Véliz, University of Oxford
Prof. Simonetta Vezzoso, Trento University
Dr. Plixavra Vogiatzoglou, University of Amsterdam
Prof. Sandra Wachter, University of Oxford
Assoc. Prof. Isabella Weber, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Asst. Prof. Raphaële Xenidis, Sciences Po
Prof. Nicolo Zingales, FGV Direito Rio
Prof. Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard University
Press coverage of the open letter can be found here:
