In today’s ruling, the European Court of Justice ruled that the U.S. is not allowed to spy on civilians. Stress says Ireland must meet its regulatory obligations.

The verdict of the European Court of Justice has once again added salt to the wound that has been open for seven years: No, this time actors like Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg are smiling from hate speech and data, not protectionist corruption. It is about the open insult to the USA, the most important Atlantic EU partner.

Thanks to Edward Snowden’s revelations, the world has known for years that US intelligence agencies such as the NSA are free to check the data of non – US citizens stored there on the servers of Facebook, Microsoft or Google. The EU is a scandal that has not yet been adequately addressed. Instead, the European Commission turned a blind eye and announced only last October that it would like to hand over the personal data of their EU citizens to the US if they continue to keep their privacy shield promise.

The European Union is turning a blind eye – at the expense of its citizens

Judges in Luxembourg rightly overturned it – now thousands of corporations are left, and suddenly their business has no legal protection.

However, more annoying is the behavior of an EU member: Ireland. The island state has long since developed into a Silicon Valley tax haven, with Facebook, Google and Apple, the European headquarters of leading Internet and technology companies. Of course the Irish government does not want to intimidate them – Apple has already filed a lawsuit with the European Commission against the EU to enable it to continue tax evasion.

Ireland helps Facebook and company.

This is what Ireland did in data protection: Processing has always been subject to the Irish authorities, regardless of the country where EU citizens complain to their data protection officer via Facebook or Google. In the Shrems case against Facebook, Irish data protectionists not only have the power but also the responsibility to take action and tap off data on Facebook. Instead, the Data Protection Authority tried all sorts of legal maneuvers, so it played out over time – knowingly protecting the data rights of all European citizens.

So the time has come for Europe to confront the USA with one voice and stand up for the rights of its citizens. The time has come for Ireland to fulfill its responsibility to all EU citizens, rather than relinquish individual rights to tax transfers from US multinationals.