A top ally of French President Emmanuel Macron gloated Tuesday that the European Union is treating fines on US tech giants like a piggy bank to bankroll the bloc's spending -- a disclosure the White House likened to "extortion."
Page F3From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 30 September 2026
Minister says EU spends the fines it collects from U.S. tech firms; White House calls this extortion
You will have been told that a fine is a punishment, and you will want to leave it there. Do not. A fine is a punishment to the firm that pays and revenue to the body that collects, and the two sit in one sentence without the least discomfort. A euro from a penalty is fungible — once received it is indistinguishable from every other euro in the account, which is the quiet virtue of money. A top ally of the French president said Tuesday that the Union treats the money taken from American technology companies as money for the bloc's spending. A piggy bank, the newspaper called it. Bank. The White House likened the disclosure to "extortion," and one might ask what exactly was disclosed ... the arrangement was built to do this, and it did it. In September the boss of JP Morgan met the Prime Minister and the Chancellor and said higher levies would put jobs and investment at risk. The companies pay. Brussels spends. The money does not come back.
Water from the well, the miller takes daily. The well is not yet dry.
“Brussels writes the penalties into the budget, Washington hollers extortion, and notice what neither capital is arguing about — whether the companies earned the fine. They're fighting over who keeps the check. Meanwhile a bank boss walks in and gets a sit-down with the Prime Minister to explain why taxing him would cost you your job; you get a headline and a bill.”
“Extortion is the White House's word — did I say extortion? That doesn't sound like me. Look, when a foreign bureaucracy pencils penalties on American firms into its own spending plan, that is not enforcement, that is a revenue model, and I am not saying anybody did anything, I am saying nobody should be anybody's piggy bank. Except a bank. Which, fine.”
The receipts
· JP Morgan boss meets Burnham and Healey to warn against bank tax rise from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.