Is it time to talk about who pays for the pandemic?

There is no good case to be made for cutting public spending, writes James Moore, especially in Britain

Margrethe Vestager: the EU’s Competition Commissioner is battle with Apple and Ireland over their sweetheart tax deal

Across the Channel, the sensible part of Europe has been giving some thought to the future, and the need for countries to raise revenue to pay for the borrowing binge necessitated by the pandemic.

To that end Paolo Gentiloni, the European Commission’s economics commissioner, told the Financial Times that Brussels wants member states to root out the structures that facilitate aggressive corporate tax planning. If they don’t it may seek to force the issue.  

As the working week drew to a close, the commission also launched an appeal against the EU’s General Court ruling in favour of Apple and Ireland, where Dublin is in the perverse position of fighting a demand from Brussels that the tech giant pay €14.3bn in back taxes to the Irish exchequer.