If the EU can judge that one country's taxes have been "unfairly low" for the last N years, and take what would have been the tax receipts for the last N years, they can raise a lot more than they do by fines. This is especially true if they decide to do it for all of the businesses in a country, instead of just for a few.

I mean, look, the EU is still a place that is more or less governed by rule of law. All I'm saying is that, if the EU keeps the money, that creates the temptation to abuse it.

They didn’t do that, they decided that specific tax deals made with specific companies were outside of the law

Yes, I know that. That's all that has happened... so far.

And I maintain that, to keep it that way, it is good that the money not wind up at the EU, but rather at the member state.