Brian Keegan: France has big plans for its EU presidency

Emmanuel Macron aims to have the 15 per cent corporate tax proposals in force by this time next year, and that’s not the half of it

As the second largest economy in the EU, France has plenty of resources to direct during its six-month tenure in the hot-seat. Picture: Getty

The publication in the days before Christmas of a proposed EU directive to give effect to a 15 per cent rate of corporation tax across the bloc had a particular Irish hue to it – Paschal Donohoe’s sticking point of a “minimum tax rate means 15 per cent and not ‘at least’ 15 per cent” is in the text.

If this Irish imprint came at the expense of surrendering a totem of our economic policy, ...