Why Germany’s Culture Minister Wants Google Broken Up

Google Offices/ PHOTO/ COURTESY

Germany's culture minister said Google should be broken up, in remarks released Thursday that risk the ire of US President Donald Trump at a time of transatlantic trade tensions.

Speaking on the Friday edition of Politico's Berlin Playbook Podcast, Wolfram Weimer accused Google of "paying next to no tax" and of "giving nothing back to society".

"We need to address Google on all fronts," he said. "Best of all would be to break it up."

The comments come after the European Commission this month fined Google 2.95 billion euros ($3.47 billion) for abusing its market position in online advertising, bringing Google's total EU penalties to nearly 10 billion euros.

Trump denounced the move as "very unfair" and threatened to impose further tariffs on countries that go after US tech firms.

Weimer said that the European Union was on a "good path" when it came to regulating Google but added that "substantially more" was needed.

"They earn billions and billions here and sneak it all out through Dublin", he said in a reference to Google's European subsidiary being based in lower-tax Ireland.

Trump has denounced taxes on digital giants as discriminatory against US firms, and in June broke off trade talks with Canada over Ottawa's planned digital services tax before it then backed down.

Weimer in May said a draft tax on the revenue of large digital platforms was in the works and that a rate of 10 percent would be "moderate and legitimate".

"These companies make billions in Germany with very high margins and profit enormously from our media and culture as well as our infrastructure but pay hardly any tax," he told Stern magazine.