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Trump Throws Tantrum After EU Shows What It Looks Like to Hold Tech Giants Like Google to Account
"They should get their money back!" Trump said while defending America's tech giants.
Sep 05, 2025
US President Donald Trump on Friday angrily lashed out after the European Commission slapped tech giant Google with a $3.45 billion fine for violating antitrust laws.
The European Commission ordered Google to end its anticompetitive practices such as its payments to ensure its search engine receives preferential treatment on internet browsers and mobile phones. The commission also demanded that Google "implement measures to cease its inherent conflicts of interest along the adtech supply chain."
EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said that the decision demonstrated that "Google abused its dominant position in adtech harming publishers, advertisers, and consumers" and that it must "must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies."
Shortly after the ruling, Trump took to Truth Social to blast Europe for enforcing its antitrust laws.
"Europe today 'hit' another great American company, Google, with a $3.5 billion fine, effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American investments and jobs," Trump wrote. "Very unfair, and the American taxpayer will not stand for it! As I have said before, my administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand. Apple, as an example, was forced to pay $17 billion in a fine that, in my opinion, should not have been charged—they should get their money back!"
Trump added that "we cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these taxpaying American companies."
Max von Thun, Europe director for anti-monopoly think tank Open Markets Institute, had a decidedly different take from the president, and praised the European Commission for taking an "important first step in breaking Google's chokehold over the underlying architecture not merely of the internet, but of the free press in the 21st century."
"It is only right that Google pays the price for its blatant and long-standing lawbreaking," he added. "More importantly however, the commission has given Google two months to end its illegal practices and resolve the profound conflicts of interest which arise from its control of every layer of the adtech stack."
The European Commission's decision stood in stark contrast to a decision issued earlier this week from Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, who declined to force Google to sell off its Chrome web browser or share all requested data with its competitors despite finding that the company had violated American antitrust laws.
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'Simply Empowers the Bully': EU Leader Faces Backlash Over Trump Trade Deal
"Von der Leyen has just handed Trump the biggest victory he could hope for," said one critic. "We will all pay the price because in the process, she has strengthened him and his fascist project. Deeply depressing."
Jul 28, 2025
The leadership of the European Union on Sunday struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that will leave tariffs significantly higher for many of the bloc's exports—including cars, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors—and at 50% for steel and aluminum.
News of the deal was met with sharp criticism, including from some European officials. François Bayrou, France's prime minister, wrote on social media that "it is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission."
Nick Dearden, director of the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, warned that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen "has just handed Trump the biggest victory he could hope for."
"We will all pay the price because in the process, she has strengthened him and his fascist project. Deeply depressing," Dearden wrote, arguing that the deal "simply empowers the bully" and likely won't last.
In her statement announcing the agreement with Trump, von der Leyen suggested the deal would avert further escalations from the U.S. president and bring "stability" to markets unsettled by his erratic threats.
"Today with this deal, we are creating more predictability for our businesses," she said. "In these turbulent times, this is necessary for our companies to be able to plan and invest."
The sweeping 15% tariff on E.U. products entering the U.S. is half the rate that the president threatened to impose earlier this month, but it is far higher than the estimated 1.5% rate prior to Trump's second White House term. The E.U. is the United States' largest trading partner.
Cailin Birch, global economist at the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC that while the deal represents "a climb down from a much worse place," the 15% tariff "is still a big escalation from where we were pre-Trump 2.0."
Wolfgang Niedermark, a board member of the Federation of German Industries, called the deal "an inadequate compromise" that "will have a huge negative impact on Germany's export-oriented industry."
Trump and his team wasted no time bragging in bombastic terms about the agreement. Trump called it "probably the biggest deal ever reached in any capacity, trade or beyond trade," while the president's deputy chief of staff gushed that it is "impossible to overstate what a staggering achievement President Trump delivered for America today."
" Stephen Miller is boasting about Trump hitting us with a HUGE tax increase," responded economist Dean Baker, alluding to the fact that tariffs are often passed to consumers in the form of higher prices.
As part of the agreement, the E.U. pledged to buy $750 billion worth of U.S. energy over three years—including LNG and oil.
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, said in a statement Monday that "it's deeply shortsighted to see the E.U. strike a so-called 'deal' with the U.S. that locks us into expensive, polluting gas."
"Fossil gas is not only worse for the climate than coal, it comes at a higher cost," said Sieber. "This risks locking Europe into decades of fossil fuel dependence, volatile energy bills, and accelerating the wildfires and flooding already wreaking havoc across the continent. While Trump celebrates this as a win, communities on both sides of the Atlantic are suffering with deadly climate impacts."
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Trump’s Animosity Is Bringing Europeans Closer Together and to the Rest of the World
There is an emerging consensus among European policymakers and experts alike that Trump wants to do to the E.U. what he is doing to the U.S.—destroy its civil society.
Jun 03, 2025
The European Union came into existence in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which led to a single market, border-free travel, and the euro. Since then, the E.U. has evolved in various ways, although it has stopped short of developing a centralized fiscal authority and setting up a European army. Moreover, the E.U. has long been plagued by a number of legitimacy problems that have given rise to Euroscepticism among both left-wing and right-wing citizens.
Nonetheless, certain recent global developments are forcing the E.U. to upend many long-held ideas and norms about its own security and relations with other countries. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the sudden shift in U.S. policy toward Europe have made both policymakers and citizens across the continent more aware of the need not only for deeper integration and a new European governance architecture but also of the historical necessity to create a new world order. While Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced the E.U. to rethink its energy policy and compelled countries such as Finland and Sweden to become full members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is U.S. President Donald Trump’s hostility toward Europe and its institutions that is bringing Europeans closer together and even making them realize that the E.U. is a safe haven when all is said and done.
Indeed, the latest Eurobarometer survey, which was released on May 27, 2025, reveals the highest level of trust in the E.U. in nearly two decades and the highest support ever for the common currency. The overwhelming majority of respondents also displayed support for a common defense system among E.U. member states and opposition to tariffs. Equally impressive is the fact that a huge majority agreed that the E.U. is “a place of stability in a troubled world.”
Trump is trying to remake the United States in his own image and also to destroy the E.U., which he says is “nastier than China.”
These findings come just days after Trump told a rally in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania that he will double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50%. This move, which will take effect on June 4, prompted the European Commission to announce that Europe is prepared to roll out countermeasures in order to retaliate against President Trump’s plan to increase steel and aluminum tariffs. It said that it “strongly” regrets Trump’s threat and that “if no mutually acceptable solution is reached both existing and additional E.U. measures will automatically take effect on July 14—or earlier, if circumstances require.”
The concern among many Europeans is that U.S.-E.U. relations are not only seriously damaged but that the U.S. has now become Europe’s enemy. Since coming to office, Trump has launched an active campaign against European democracy, with members of his administration not only bashing Europe but openly supporting far-right parties across the continent.
The common perception about Europe is that it is indecisive, too slow to act, even when major crises come knocking at its door. There is an element of truth in that, as the E.U. has shown a proclivity for reactive rather than proactive political behavior. But the Trump shock appears to be rousing Europe from its geopolitical slumber. The E.U. is standing up to the bully in Washington and is looking after Europe’s own interests with greater zeal than ever before. This is because there is indeed an emerging consensus among European policymakers and experts alike that Trump wants to do to Europe what he is doing to the U.S.--i.e., destroy its civil society. MAGA hates Europe for cultural and political reasons. For Trump, as Célia Belin, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of the Paris office, aptly put it, “Europeans are an extension of his political opposition at home... and Europe is thus a symbol of the political ideals [that] Trump seeks to eliminate, transform, and subjugate.”
In its attempts to find a new role in world affairs in the Trump era, Europe is not merely reacting to Washington’s whims but seeks to implement policies that reinforce its own strategic autonomy, both internally and externally. The European Commission has updated its industrial strategy by speeding up clean energy and pursuing new trade agreements with reliable partners. While some European leaders see both Russia and China as representing a threat to the rules-based international order, there have been numerous calls by various policymakers across the continent for a closer collaboration between China and the E.U. in light of “Trump’s ‘mafia-like’ tactics.” European Union leaders will travel for a high-stakes summit to Beijing in July after failing to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Brussels for a summit marking the 50th anniversary of E.U.-China diplomatic relations. And France has called for a stronger E.U.-China alignment on climate action amid the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
China is the E.U.’s second-largest trading partner. Europe is, in fact, not only growing more dependent on China for manufactured goods but, in spite of differences in bilateral relations, such as China’s position on the war in Ukraine, is actually warming up to the idea that the E.U.-China relationship is an essential vehicle for tackling global challenges and safeguarding international multilateralism.
Europe is also looking into other regions of the world as part of a concerted effort to promote ever more vigorously its own strategic autonomy. Since Trump took office, the E.U. concluded a free trade agreement with Mercosur, an economic bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, with scores of other countries (among them are Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru) as associate members. Mercosur, or the Southern Common Market, is the fifth-largest economy and encompasses more than 285 million people.
The E.U.-Mercosur agreement, which had been in the making for 25 years, still needs to be ratified, and Argentina’s far-right Milei government, which is in close political-ideological alignment with the Trump administration, could prove to be a stumbling block to its ratification. Argentinian President Javier Milei is, in fact, more interested in signing a free trade agreement with the United States, which would be in violation of Mercosur regulations.
After many years of negotiations, the E.U. is also close to finalizing a free trade agreement with India. The 11th round of negotiations between India and the E.U. concluded on May 16, and there is a firm commitment by both sides to strike a deal by the end of 2025. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, this agreement would be “the largest deal of its kind anywhere in the world.”
If ratified, the E.U.-Mercosur free trade agreement will create a market of around 800 million people. When finalized, the E.U.-India free trade agreement will create a market of close to 2 billion consumers.
Trump is trying to remake the United States in his own image and also to destroy the E.U., which he says is “nastier than China.” One would like to believe that it is probably unlikely that he will succeed in remaking the U.S. in his own nasty image, but it is positively certain that he will not succeed in destroying Europe and its institutions, even though there is a lot that needs to be done to create a fairer and more inclusive Europe. In the meantime, however, Trump’s “mafia-like tactics” are bringing Europeans closer together and the continent ever closer to other regions of the world.
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'Toasts Not Tariffs': Critics Slam Trump's Threat of 200% Levy on EU Alcohol Products
"This is how trade wars escalate," said one observer. "Eventually you forget who fired the first shot, but the losers are consumers on both sides."
Mar 13, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to slap a 200% tariff on many alcohol products made in the European Union in retaliation for a 50% levy on American whiskey and bourbon recently announced by the 27-nation bloc's executive commission.
"The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "If this tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% tariff on all wines, champagnes, and alcoholic products coming out of France and other E.U.-represented countries."
"This will be great for the wine and champagne businesses in the U.S.," added Trump, who owns a Virginia winery. Only sparkling wine from grapes grown in France's Champagne region can be called champagne under a law protecting the product origin designation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that "we deeply regret this measure."
"Tariffs are taxes, they are bad for business and worse for consumers," she added. "They are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy."
The European Commission's move to reimpose a 50% tariffs on U.S.-made whiskey and bourbon starting April 1 was itself part of the bloc's response to Trump's 25% levy on steel and aluminum imported from the E.U., which took effect on Wednesday. Trump has also unleashed a barrage of tariffs on some of the U.S.' main trading partners including Canada, China, and Mexico, and is threatening even broader tariffs if countries don't lower trade barriers by April 2.
French Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin struck a defiant tone Thursday, accusing Trump of "escalating the trade war he chose to unleash."
"We will not give in to threats and will always protect our sectors," he added.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, an alcohol industry lobby, urged Trump "to secure a spirits agreement with the E.U. to get us back to zero-for-zero tariffs, which will create U.S. jobs and increase manufacturing and exports for the American hospitality sector."
"We want toasts not tariffs," the lobby added.
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EU Accused of 'Bowing to Pressure' From Trump With Plan to Increase LNG Investments
"The E.U.'s proposed foray into foreign LNG investments appears to be a high-stakes gamble fraught with pitfalls," wrote one market analyst.
Feb 26, 2025
On Wednesday, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, unveiled its Affordable Energy Action Plan, a list of actions ostensibly aimed at securing affordable and clean energy for European citizens. But the plan includes a measure focused on funding international liquefied natural gas exports, which has been criticized as a win for Big Oil companies in the United States and for lacking business sense.
The plan calls for the European Union to back export infrastructure for liquefied natural gas (LNG)—which may have a worse carbon footprint than coal—and long-term LNG contracts to secure "a better deal for imported natural gas."
While the document does not directly single out U.S. LNG export projects, during a press conference on Wednesday centered on the Affordable Energy Action Plan, Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, said that the European Union has "been dependent on LNG from the U.S. and we will continue to be so in the future" when asked about reliable sources of LNG.
This "would mark a major change in the bloc's energy policies, strengthening the continent's links to the carbon-intensive liquefied natural gas it eventually wants to phase out," according to Politico, which reported on this provision of the plan before the full plan was released.
The business case for the LNG proposal would be "disastrous," wrote a spokesperson for the environmental group Friends of the Earth US in a statement Wednesday, adding that "the Action Plan is music to the ears of Trump's Big Oil buddies."
When it comes to LNG, the plan notes that the Commission will "explore options going beyond demand aggregation and will look into other approaches (e.g. the Japanese model)."
For the past five decades, Japan has been the world's biggest buyer of LNG, directly purchasing stakes in overseas LNG ventures in order to secure access to gas at "preferential prices," per Politico. Using this approach, Japan has become the largest public backer of American LNG projects.
However, as demand for natural gas has fallen in Japan, Japanese utilities—once purely buyers of LNG—are increasingly selling the product abroad, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
This trajectory makes the "Japanese model" more of a "cautionary tale" as opposed to something that the European Commission ought to pursue, wrote to Seb Kennedy, an energy journalist and market analyst.
"The E.U.'s proposed foray into foreign LNG investments appears to be a high-stakes gamble fraught with pitfalls. By risking public funds on ventures that have already demonstrated turbulent market behavior, Europe may be setting the stage for future financial misadventures," Kennedy wrote on Monday.
Meanwhile, Politico also reported that U.S. President Trump—who made restarting reviews of applications for approvals of liquified LNG projects one of his first official moves in office—is "pressing the EU to buy more American LNG, threatening to impose severe tariffs if the bloc doesn't meet that and other demands."
In her response to the European Commission's Action Plan, Laurie van der Burg, global public finance program manager at Oil Change International, a group that fights for a fossil fuel-free world, said that the proposal constitutes "bowing to pressure from the Trump administration and lining the pockets of the fossil fuel industry."
Climate and consumer groups argue U.S. LNG exports are harming public health, devastating the environment, and raising prices for working families.
"In my community, LNG has brought more than just terminals and pipelines; it has ushered in a wave of health crises, environmental degradation, and economic disparities," said Roishetta Ozane, founder of Vessel Project of Louisiana and co-director of Gulf Fossil Finance Hub, in a statement on Wednesday tied to the release of the Affordable Energy Action Plan.
"Our water is contaminated and we're forced to purchase water in plastic bottles. All while the promise of jobs feels hollow against the backdrop of our poisoned land," Ozane wrote. "We deserve better than to be collateral damage in the pursuit of energy profits. Enough is enough."
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‘Long-Overdue Justice’: EU Court Rules Ireland Let Apple Avoid $14.4 Billion in Taxes
"This ruling exposes E.U. tax havens' love affair with multinationals."
Sep 10, 2024
The European Union's highest court on Tuesday ruled that Apple must pay €13 billion in back taxes to Ireland, determining that the country gave the company illegal tax benefits in the past, in what campaigners called a victory for tax justice.
The E.U. Court of Justice ruling brought to a close a landmark case that began in 2016 when the European Commission ordered Apple to pay the €13 billion ($14.4 billion) based on an unfair tax arrangement the company had with Ireland from 1991 until 2014. A lower court overturned the commission's order in 2020, but Tuesday's ruling, which is final, restores it.
Observers viewed the case as among the most important brought by E.U. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, an antitrust official who's been in office since 2014.
"It's important to show European taxpayers that once in a while, tax justice can be done," Vestager, who leaves office in two weeks, said following Tuesday's ruling.
Chiara Putaturo, a tax policy adviser at Oxfam EU, said in a statement that "this ruling exposes E.U. tax havens' love affair with multinationals. It delivers long-overdue justice after over a decade of Ireland standing by and allowing Apple to dodge taxes."
Today is a huge win for European citizens and tax justice.
👉In its final judgment, @EUCourtPress confirms @EU_Commission 2016 decision: Ireland granted illegal aid to @Apple.
Ireland now has to release up to 13 billion euros of unpaid taxes.
— Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) September 10, 2024
The European Commission argued that the selective tax benefits that Ireland had offered to two Apple subsidiaries amounted to illegal state aid that hindered competition. The company's tax burden in Ireland, where its European operations have been based since 1980, was as low as 0.005% of its profits in 2014.
In November of last year, Giovanni Pitruzzella, the advocate general of the E.U. Court of Justice, issued an opinion in favor of the commission's position and against the lower court ruling, in a setback for the tech giant. The high court, which is based in Luxembourg, generally agrees with its advocate general following such recommendations, as it ultimately did on Tuesday.
The €13 billion, plus interest, has been held in an escrow account since 2018 and will be released to Ireland, even though the country fought against the commission's order. Ireland said it would respect the court ruling.
Ireland is often characterized a tax haven within the E.U. and hosts the European headquarters for many multinational firms, with critics charging that its tax system drives up inequality.
Tax justice campaigners said Tuesday's ruling should just be a start and that more fundamental reforms are needed at the international and E.U. level.
"Our tax problem is more than just one rotten apple," Tove Maria Ryding, a policy manager at the European Network on Debt and Development, said in a statement.
"The international system for taxing multinational corporations continues to be deeply complex, unpredictable and unfair," she added, arguing that a company's economic activity across many countries, including in the Global South, shouldn't mean tax revenues only for one country such as Ireland.
Ryding praised the United Nations' efforts to establish a global tax convention, calling the proposal a "beacon of hope for a fairer future."
Putaturo of Oxfam likewise called for a fairer tax system in Europe.
"While this ruling will force the tech giant to pay its debt, the root of the issue is far from solved," she said. "E.U. tax havens can still make sweetheart tax deals with big multinationals. The duty to stop this rests on the shoulders of E.U. policymakers. Yet, they have turned a blind eye to tax havens within their borders and the harmful race to the bottom that countries like Ireland are instigating."
Oxfam EU also called for the closing of tax loopholes and the establishment of a wealth tax.
The Apple case was not the only victory for Vestager, the antitrust chief, on Tuesday: The E.U. Court of Justice also ruled that Google had illegally used its search engine dominance to favor its own shopping service, fining the company €2.4 billion ($2.65 billion).
Bloomberg on Tuesday called it a "double boost to the European Union’s crackdown on Big Tech," and said that Vestager's past work had "paved the way" for the U.S. and the U.K. to take action against Google.
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Scientists Blockade EU Commission Offices to Demand Degrowth
Amid elections in Europe, opponents of ongoing planetary destruction argue that the "science is clear: politicians' obsession with infinite economic growth is leading us straight to disaster."
Jun 07, 2024
A group of about 20 scientists and allies on Friday blocked the doors to the European Commission office in Brussels to demand degrowth policies as European Union elections unfold in which no party has such an agenda and pro-environment candidates are expected to lose seats.
The degrowth advocates, who came from Scientist Rebellion and affiliated groups, called for the EU to stop using Gross Domestic Product as an index of prosperity and an end to "over-consumption and the advertising that drives it," among other demands. Carrying placards with messages such as "Green growth is a myth," they prevented employees of the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, from getting to work Friday morning, they said in an emailed statement.
Wolfgang Cramer, an environmental geographer at the Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology in France and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author, supported the action from a distance.
"Economic growth is a concept that was useful almost 100 years ago to help politicians overcome the disaster of the 1929 world economic crisis," Cramer said, according to the statement. "Today, it has become a leitmotif to justify the destruction of our natural resources and to support the redistribution of wealth to the richest. What we need is an economic system that guarantees the well-being of everyone, while respecting the planet's limits. This is entirely possible if we have the political will."
The degrowth movement, which began in the 2000s following work in the field of ecological economics, seeks to address not only the climate crisis but also other ecological crises. Its proponents argue that economic growth is linked with energy and resource use—the more growth, the more difficult to stay within planetary limits on carbon emissions, or, for example, nitrogen and phosphorous use, they argue.
Degrowth is the subject of mockery in some legacy media outlets that hold economic growth sacrosanct and is a matter of fierce debate among leftist political thinkers, some of whom strongly oppose it. Despite the criticism, degrowth has grown in influence, especially in Europe, where the topic has moved from the "policy fringes" toward a "mainstream audience," Financial Times reported last year. The economic paradigm questioning endless expansion has even received favorable mention in EU policy briefs and IPCC reports.
"It is unlikely that a long-lasting, absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures and impacts can be achieved at the global scale,” a European Environment Agency briefing says. "Therefore, societies need to rethink what is meant by growth and progress and their meaning for global sustainability."
Many climate policy researchers are in fact skeptical of "green growth" and support "growth agnostic" or degrowth policies, a 2023 study in Nature Sustainability found.
In a manifesto Scientist Rebellion pointed to on Friday, the group argued that, "The science is clear: politicians' obsession with infinite economic growth is leading us straight to disaster."
Científicos de @ScientistRebel1, @ExtinctionR y @growth_kills bloquearon esta mañana la entrada de la Comisión Europea. Lamentan que, en estas elecciones, ninguna partido proponga el decrecimiento como salida a la crisis climática.
Las 5 demandas:
1) Abandonar el PIB como… pic.twitter.com/y07yUjLxI2
— Andrés Actis (@ActisAndres) June 7, 2024
The group's Friday action comes on the second day of this week's EU elections, which run from Thursday to Sunday. Right-wing parties are pushing anti-environment messages with great success, The New York Times reported Friday.
"The right wing is ascendant," according to the Times, which explained that the European Greens are polling poorly this year, after having won a record 10% of seats in the EU Parliament in 2019—a year of large climate protests, when the "zeitgeist was green."
That victory helped propel the EU toward the European Green Deal, a set of environmental laws and regulations centered around a legally binding target to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030.
However, inflation and high energy prices due to the war in Ukraine have changed some of the political dynamics. Rising prices have helped lead to what the European Council on Foreign Relations has called a “growing greenlash.”
Ahead of the elections, farmers' groups have protested regulations on agricultural pollutants, showing that "agriculture has been instrumentalized by the populist and hard-right groups throughout the 27-nation bloc," The Associated Press reported.
Yet climate activist groups remain determined to push forward. Scientist Rebellion seeks to draw attention to what it sees as the blind spots in the political platforms of even Europe's left-wing and green parties.
"We deplore the fact that virtually no party is proposing a program that is up to the social and environmental challenge," said Laura Stalenhoef, a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive psychology in Germany who took part in Friday's action. "But we do not just denounce political inaction, we put forward concrete proposals for change: we urgently need to abandon GDP as an index of prosperity and organise a voluntary contraction of the economy before we witness ecological and social collapse."
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'The Law Is the Law': EU Investigates Apple, Google, Meta for Anti-Monopoly Violations
"the days of these tech giants exploiting monopoly positions in different markets are over," said one expert.
Mar 25, 2024
The European Commission signaled Monday that it has no intention of waiting for powerful tech companies to change their practices in order to comply with a landmark anti-monopoly law passed by the European Union earlier this month, as officials informed Apple, Facebook parent company Meta, and Google parent company Alphabet that they were being investigated for potential violations.
"The law is the law," Thierry Breton, E.U. commissioner for internal market, told reporters at a press conference in Brussels announcing the probe. "We can't just sit around and wait."
The commission told the tech giants it is investigating whether Apple and Alphabet are complying with the Digital Markets Act's (DMA) measure requiring companies to allow users to be directed to offers available outside the firms' own app stores. The two companies may be imposing "various restrictions and limitations" on users to unfairly favor their own stores, including by charging fees to prevent apps from promoting offers outside the Apple and Google app stores.
The commission is investigating Meta's practice of allowing users to pay a monthly fee for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram, which allow them to avoid having their personal data used for ad-targeting.
"The commission is concerned that the binary choice imposed by Meta's 'pay or consent' model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers," said the European Commission.
Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the commission, said in Brussels that the companies have announced some steps to comply with the DMA, which took effect on March 7, but that some of the measures "fail to achieve their objectives and fall short of expectations."
Compliance "is something that we take very seriously," said Vestager.
The DMA identifies Alphabet, Apple, and Meta as three of six digital "gatekeepers" that are required to end anti-competition practices. New regulations require the companies to allow third parties to operate with the gatekeepers' own services, allow business users to access the data they generate when using the companies' platforms, allow users to un-install any pre-installed software or app if they choose to, and treat their own services and products equally to those offered by third parties.
The commission has 12 months to complete the investigations and could fine the multibillion-dollar companies up to 10% of their global revenue if they find them to be in violation of the DMA.
John O'Brennan, professor of European politics at Maynooth University in Ireland, said the investigation signals that "the days of these tech giants exploiting monopoly positions in different markets are over."
The E.U. fined Apple $1.8 billion earlier this month for suppressing competition from rival music streaming apps such as Spotify. The company is also under scrutiny in the U.S., with the Department of Justice joining 16 states last week in filing a lawsuit accusing Apple of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market.
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Campaigners Applaud UK Exit From 'Climate-Wrecking' Energy Charter Treaty
"The Energy Charter Treaty was a major barrier to the progress of a just transition," said one climate action group. "Good riddance!"
Feb 22, 2024
The United Kingdom's decision to exit a 30-year-old fossil fuel-friendly treaty will "untie a straitjacket" on the country's ability to ensure a just transition toward renewable energy, said one campaign group on Thursday.
Officials announced that after two years of negotiations regarding a modernization of the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT)—which allows fossil fuel companies to sue governments over profits lost due to climate policies that reduce the use of coal, oil, and gas—the U.K. will leave the treaty due to a stalemate.
The U.K., which plans to achieve net-zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050, helped broker a deal in 2022 that would have included protections for a transition to renewable energy sources while maintaining the ECT's investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism, which permits the fossil fuel lawsuits.
"The Energy Charter Treaty is outdated and in urgent need of reform, but talks have stalled and sensible renewal looks increasingly unlikely," said Graham Stuart, the energy security and net zero minister for the U.K. "Remaining a member would not support our transition to cleaner, cheaper energy, and could even penalize us for our world-leading efforts to deliver net zero."
Social justice group Global Justice Now noted that Britons "up and down the country have campaigned tirelessly" to end the U.K.'s participation in the treaty.
"Huge congratulations to all the campaigners who have pushed so hard for this for so long," added Fossil Free Parliament. "The Energy Charter Treaty was a major barrier to the progress of a just transition. Good riddance!"
An estimated 60% of decisions by tribunals set up by the ECT favor fossil fuel companies, and the treaty has allowed energy companies to sue the Netherlands for $2.6 billion to compensate for their losses stemming from the Dutch government's planned coal phaseout. A U.K. company also sued Italy for $237 million for banning it from drilling an oil field in the Adriatic Sea.
"The ECT is now a dead man walking, and only those profiting from the destruction of our planet will mourn its passing," said Cleodie Rickard, trade campaigns manager for Global Justice Now. "However, the mechanism in the ECT which made it so deadly—the investor-state dispute settlement provisions—lives on in a number of other treaties... With ISDS's legitimacy crumbling, now is the time to scrap this system."
The U.K.'s decision comes three months after more than 200 civil society groups called on U.S. President Joe Biden to dismantle the ISDS mechanism within the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP), a trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Nine E.U. member states have recently withdrawn from the ECT, including France, Spain, and the Netherlands.
On Tuesday, E.U. energy ministers held a technical meeting on a proposal for all 27 member states to exit the treaty en masse; an agreement could be reached on the plan by next month.
"As it stands, the treaty is not in line with the E.U.'s energy and climate goals and with the E.U.'s investment policy and law," a spokesperson for the European Commission told The Guardian. "Despite the commission's successful negotiating efforts with international partners to update the treaty, it was not possible for member states to find the necessary majority to approve the modernized treaty. We therefore proposed that the E.U., its member states, and Euratom withdraw from the ECT in a coordinated and orderly manner."
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Calls Grow for 'European Arms Embargo' on Israel After Dutch F-35 Ruling
"Surely it's time to stop all arm shipments to Israel," said one British lawmaker, "and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership."
Feb 14, 2024
While the White House has claimed U.S. President Joe Biden is growing increasingly "frustrated" with Israel's bombardment of Gaza—largely made possible by U.S. military aid—calls are growing in Europe for governments to halt arms exports to stop their own contributions to the mass killing.
After a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel on Monday, ruling that the country was running a "clear risk" of helping Israel to violate international human rights law, several British lawmakers intensified their demands that the U.K. also halt arms exports.
"Selling arms to Israel for its war on Gaza is incompatible with U.K. and international law," said Diane Abbott, a Labour Party member in British Parliament. "[Prime Minister Rishi] Sunak should follow suit and ban weapon sales to Israel."
Natalie Bennett, a member of the Green Party in the British House of Lords, spoke on Tuesday about six-year-old Hind Rajab, whose body was found last week in a car in which her family members had tried to flee Gaza City. The car was riddled with bullet holes, and an ambulance nearby, which paramedics had sent to rescue Hind, had been bombed.
"Is the government challenging the Israeli government about risks to hundreds of thousands of children in Rafah, now in the path of the Israeli offensive?" said Bennett. "Surely it's time to stop all arm shipments to Israel... and implement targeted sanctions against members of the Israeli leadership."
The U.K. provides about 15% of the components of Israel's F-35 bombers—the Israeli Air Force's "flagship asset," according to the Royal United Services Institute—and has licensed more than $594 million in military exports to Israel since 2015.
While the U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill, including $14.1 billion for Israel, some European governments are working to end their complicity in Israel's mass killing of at least 28,576 Palestinians so far in attacks that have also wounded at least 68,291 and left at least 17,000 children orphaned.
On February 6, the Walloon regional government in Belgium suspended two licenses for the export gunpowder to Israel, citing the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) interim ruling last month which found that Israel is "plausibly" committing a genocide in Gaza.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in late January that the government had halted all arms sales to Israel in October, when Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on October 7.
José Albares, Spain's foreign minister, also said last month that the Spanish government had done the same, but El Diario reported on Sunday that the country had actually exported $1.1 million in ammunition to Israel in November.
"The suspension of arms transfers to Israel must be comprehensive and permanent, and not just temporary," said Alberto Estévez, a spokesperson on weapons issues at Amnesty International Spain. "The Spanish government has wanted to be an example in this crisis in the face of other much more complicit governments, but it must be more forceful to promote a European arms embargo on Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, in addition to pressuring the United States to stop the supply of arms to Israel and support the imposition of a global embargo on the U.N. Security Council."
On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez joined Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in writing to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and demanding an "urgent review" of Israel's compliance with human rights obligations under its trade deal with the European Union.
"Against the background of the risk of an even greater humanitarian catastrophe posed by the imminent threat of Israeli military operations in Rafah, and given what has occurred, and continues to occur in Gaza since October 2023, including widespread concern about possible breaches of international humanitarian law and international human rights laws by Israel, we ask that the Commission undertake an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations, including under the E.U./Israel Association Agreement, which makes respect for human rights and democratic principles an essential element of the relationship," wrote Sánchez and Varadkar.
The two leaders reiterated their call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, which was supported by a large majority of countries in a vote at the U.N. General Assembly in December, "including by 17 E.U. member states."
Varadkar and Sánchez also pointed to the ICJ's interim ruling in South Africa's case last month, in which the country accused Israel of genocidal violence against Palestinians.
The orders of the ICJ, which demanded that Israel ensure that humanitarian aid can reach Gaza residents and that its military is not committing acts of genocide, "are binding," the leaders reminded the European Union.
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