I am about to stroll over to the East Village to tape a brief interview for Irish television with economist David McWilliams. The topic, of course, is the Apple/Ireland EU state aid case. I don't know how or when this interview, or a piece of it, might appear on Irish television.
McWilliams, I gather, has responded to the European Commission's EU state aid decision by calling for his country to re-position itself as an "Atlantic Ireland with European links," rather than a "European Ireland with Atlantic links." Whether this is right or not would be hard for me to judge from across the Pond, but he certainly has a point about the distinction between Irish and EU interests here (I have instead been focusing on the distinction between US and EU interests).
The tricky part of it all, as I think he recognizes, is that, as I discuss in my forthcoming Tax Notes piece, friendly or affiliated or allied countries frequently have a mix between zero-sum and positive-sum interactions, requiring delicate strategic calculation when the former are embedded in the latter.
More on this, perhaps, after I return from the interview.
UPDATE: Nice chat, and I may at some point have a link to what gets broadcast.
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