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The German government establishes plans for a 10% tax on global Internet giants such as Meta and Google in a decision that could further fuel transatlantic trade tensions.
The German Federal Commissioner for Media and Culture, Wolfram Weimer, told Stern on Thursday that the new government writes a digital tax on global Internet platforms, although alternatives such as a voluntary commitment of the technological companies concerned to pay more tax in Germany are also under study.
The Center-Gauche Coalition of the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz agreed to “assess” a tax on internet platforms in its treaty signed in early May, agreeing that the product should be used to strengthen the country’s media landscape.
“We are serious about it,” said the former editor -in -chief of the title belonging to Axel Springer, Die Welt, in the interview. Weimer added that he had invited “the leadership of Google as well as key industry representatives” to organize discussions on alternatives to a tax, “including possible voluntary commitments”.
A German tax on Google, Meta and other American Internet giants could exercise more transatlantic trade relations at a time when US President Donald Trump accuses the EU of unjustly treating American companies and wishes to impose prices as a response.
But Weimer was not imperturbable by such a perspective, stressing that the new German government began the legal bases to establish a tax. He said the duty could focus on German advertising revenues from digital platforms like Facebook and Instagram from Google and Meta and can rise to 10%.
“We are preparing a concrete bill,” said Weimer, adding that he “could” be based on the Austria model, which he praised as a “single and effective tax on online advertising services for very large platform operators”. Weimer stressed that the actual tax rate could be higher in Germany, stressing that twice this rate was considered “moderate and legitimate” by the German government.
Several other EU countries, including France, already have taxes on digital companies.
Facebook and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
German media organizations, including the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and newspaper publishers, congratulated Weimer’s initiative, saying to the German DPA Newswire that they welcomed that the Internet giants would be “held responsible”.
The organization and another group of lobbies, the Media Association of the Free Press, urged the government of Merz to redistribute the product of any tax to media organizations with editorial teams, stressing that their own commercial models have undergone spectacular pressure from global technological platforms.
Weimer told Stern that a tax should be applied to all technological platforms that generate “billions of income” in Germany and use the editorial and cultural content created by others.
Austria’s experience had shown that such advertising revenue has not triggered “significant price changes” but “led to companies that ultimately made a small tax contribution to the company, which means that their enormous beneficiary margins have slightly decreased,” added Weimer.
