Tag Archives: Martin Sonneborn

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This morning.

At the European Parliament.

A direct appeal to the President of Ireland Micheal D Higgins from German satirist MEP Martin Sonneborn, of parody party Die PARTEI (“Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroot-Democratic Initiative”) – in relation to the Apple tax ruling.

From around 45 seconds, Mr Sonneborn said [in English]:

‘Dear Mr President of Ireland. If you still believe that Apple will create some jobs in Ireland, forget it. Apple only ever had one Jobs. But he is dead. He will not come back. So, please take my advice: take the money and run. 13 billion euro will buy you many, many iPhones. This will generate more tax income for Ireland. Then you can buy even more iPhones. It’s a win, win, win situation. Think it over with a good bottle of whiskey, sláinte.’ “

In addition, Mr Sonneborn said [translated from German]:

“The EU has changed. When I took up this job I wanted to fight for a core strong Europe. And we now find the numbers committed to that have gone down after Brexit and the current situation in Hungary, we now see other people being shown the door. A government which actually refuses to take the taxes from the Apple firm, for example, could actually give the impression that what we’re really talking about is a Europe of business and not of citizens.”

Thanks Simon M