Ireland has long been under scrutiny for allegedly providing a tax haven for American companies. During his last term in the White House, current presidential candidate Donald Trump name-checked the country in a speech in which he pledged to bring “trillions of dollars” in tax revenue to the states -United.

“For too long, our tax code has incentivized businesses to leave our country in search of lower tax rates,” he said in 2017. “It’s happening – many, many businesses.” They are going to Ireland. They go everywhere.

According to Daly, the ECJ decision is “not good for Ireland”. “Ireland has always tried to position itself as a country offering generous but fair tax rules,” he says. “It has certainly been detrimental to Ireland Inc.”

Chiara Putaturo, an adviser on European tax policy at the charity Oxfam, which has been involved in a long-running campaign against tax havens, said the ruling “delivers long-overdue justice after more than a decade of Ireland stood by and allowed Apple to avoid taxes.” ” adding that this “ “reveals the EU tax havens’ love affair with multinationals.”

However, Putaturo said that although Ireland will be forced to recoup the €13 billion from Apple, the case did not prohibit the use of so-called “soft tax deals” in the EU. Notably, in the Fiat and Amazon cases, judged in 2022 and 2023 respectively, the CJEU ruled that similar agreements concluded in Luxembourg did not constitute state aid.

“Even if this decision will force [Apple] to pay its debt, the root of the problem is far from being resolved,” she said. “EU tax havens can still conclude advantageous tax deals with large multinationals. The duty to put an end to this situation rests on the shoulders of EU policymakers. Yet they turn a blind eye to tax havens within their borders and the harmful race to the bottom that countries like Ireland incentivize.”

Apple said it was “disappointed” with the decision, adding that it “still pays”[s] all the taxes we owe wherever we operate and there has never been a special agreement. “The European Commission is attempting to change the rules retroactively and ignore that, as required by international tax law, our income was already subject to tax in the United States,” the company’s statement said.