EU to Push for Tech Tax If Global Effort Fails, Vestager Says

(Bloomberg) -- The European Union will still pursue a digital tax even if a global push at the OECD fails, the EU’s new digital czar told Bloomberg TV.

• Margrethe Vestager, currently the EU’s antitrust chief, is set to gain additional regulatory oversight as the European Commission‘s executive vice president in charge of digital affairs.
• “It would only be fair if we picked it up again if a global solution were not possible,” she said.
• The EU is planning a comprehensive strategy on data and how it ties into artificial intelligence, she said.
• On mergers, companies “can’t just acquire access to data you would otherwise not been able to have if that poses a problem to competition,” Vestager added.
• She said that the EU will continue to investigate Amazon.com Inc. on competition concerns and has asked Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. “a lot of questions.”

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