Do you really believe Apple-Ireland is the only cosy tax-based incentive that any EU member state has offered to any international company to invest and operate locally in the past 30 years?
What's next? All the member states that offered attractive VAT rates when the regime was different years ago and doing so was advantageous retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill?
> Do you really believe Apple-Ireland is the only cosy tax-based incentive that any EU member state has offered to any international company
Cases are prosecuted if someone (either competitors or the Commission) thinks they're worth the trouble. Apple and Google were clearly worth it, simply because of the massive amounts of money involved - nobody cares if an ice-cream stall is foregone 100 euros. If you know of other worthy cases, feel free to take them up with the courts.
You're mischaracterizing the issue, by the way. The problem is the way one specific company was treated, which was not in line with the practices the Irish had cleared with the EU. Other companies were not treated like that and were just fine.
> retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill
That would be an extremely popular measure, politically, but there is currently no indication that the Commission or the ECJ will ever ask for that, and it has nothing to do with this judgement.
I don't see what you think is mischaracterised here. Lots of companies have received individual favourable tax treatments within the EU in ways that would not fly today. Several member states have historically established competitive tax environments at the likely expense of their fellow members too. As I said before it is unrealistic to argue as if Apple and Ireland is the only such case.
And I doubt that retrospective VAT change would still be very popular after trading with the EU became completely toxic - which is not an unrealistic outcome from such a hostile act. Businesses already avoid EU customers because of the existing environment. Retrospective demands for more money would be much worse.
What's next? All the member states that offered attractive VAT rates when the regime was different years ago and doing so was advantageous retrospectively get reset to some baseline rate around the bloc's average and every company that ever paid VAT at lower rates in those member states gets a bill?