Over coffee and croissants, Margrethe Vestager will come eye-to-eye with Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan on Tuesday morning, just as he is appealing her €13 billion tax ruling against Apple’s operations in Cork.
Despite Ireland’s attempts to have the European competition commissioner’s invitation withdrawn, she will discuss her approach to corporate taxation before Europe’s 28 finance ministers.
Vestager has suggested that they may want a share of Apple’s tax penalty for iPhones and iPads sold in their countries.
Irish officials insist that Tuesday there will be “nothing to discuss. It’s a legal case. Nothing new will come out of [Vestager’s appearance].”
Ireland has until Thursday to appeal the commissioner’s ruling that Apple paid a tax rate as low as 0.005 percent in 2014 on its European profits in a deal that amounted to illegal state aid.
In September, Noonan depicted the verdict as part of a European conspiracy to force Ireland to raise its 12.5 percent corporate tax rate.
The Slovak presidency of the Council, which organized Tuesday’s meeting, is in damage control mode: A spokesperson insisted Vestager would not speak about individual cases and that no questions or debate was foreseen.
But not everyone got the memo. “There are some things in the Apple ruling that excited a few ministers,” said one Council source. “They want clarity and to know what this would mean for similar cases.”
The ruling piqued the interest of ministers from France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Austria at the last meeting of EU finance ministers in September. “Of course we’re looking into it,” said the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
The appeal will kick off a multi-year legal battle, and a Vestager defeat would be a major blow to her legacy.