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
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
Assoc. Prof. Kati Cseres, ACELG, University of Amsterdam
Assoc. Prof. Eileen Culloty, Dublin City University
Visiting Fellow Pat de Brun, University College Dublin
Prof. Cédric Durand, University of Geneva
Prof. Timur Ergen, Universität Bremen
Dr. Paolo Gerbaudo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Prof. Jayati Ghosh, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Assoc. Prof. Inge Graef, Tilburg University
Prof. Dario Guarascio, Sapienza University
Prof. Hamed Haddadi, Imperial College London
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
Asst. Prof. Konrad Kollnig, Maastricht University
Emeritus Prof. Douwe Korff, London Metropolitan University
Assoc. Prof. Filippo Lancieri, Georgetown Law
Dr. Veiko Lember, Tallin University of Technology
Prof. Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol
Prof. Mariana Mazzucato, IIPP, University College London
Dr. Linda Monsees, Institute of International Relations Prague
Prof. Daniel Mügge, University of Amsterdam
Dr Nessa Ní Chasaide, 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
Assoc. Prof. Edemilson Paraná, University College Dublin
Dr. Dominik Piétron, Goethe University Frankfurt
Prof. Jens Prüfer, Tilburg University and University of East Anglia
Dr. Joel Rabinovich, King's College London
Prof. Aidan Regan, University College Dublin
Assoc. Prof. Cecilia Rikap, IIPP, University College London
Prof. Viktoria Robertson, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien
Assoc. Prof. Luc Rocher, University of Oxford
Adj. Prof. Johnny Ryan, University College Dublin
Dr. Anya Schiffrin, Columbia University
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
Prof. Sandra Wachter, University of Oxford
Assoc. Prof. Isabella Weber, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Asst. Prof. Raphaële Xenidis, Sciences Po
Prof. Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard University