It's supposed to, the European single market laws require that it costs the same in each country.
The iPhone in particular does not cost more or less the same all over Europe, if only because of varying VAT rates. Salaries are very different within Europe too, the ratio of average salaries is around 1:10.
How would US espionage force the EU from prosecuting or legislating against these companies?
Well, how about evesdropping on EU meetings where such actions is discussed, and taking the appropriate actions / applying pressure to favor european officials that are against them or remove from office officials that are in favor?
What pressure do you apply?
You usually have nothing they want.
As a result, pressure you can apply is the same with or without knowing the content of the meetings (IE essentially "take your ball and go home").
Also, you know the content of the meetings because they tell you their positions. In very formal letters. That they will be held to in court.
It's not like any of this is secret.
How do you "favor officials that are against them"? They are appointed.
Why would they care? They usually can't be voted against individually.
Can you point out any that were removed from office?
I'm really trying to understand what such a thing would buy you.
Blackmail them. Bribe them. Make them a counter offer under the table that gives them some benefits. Expose something they'd done (that you know because of spying on them) to the press. Play into their parties politics to get them ousted. Sponsor your own lackeys to outvote them.
>How do you "favor officials that are against them"? They are appointed.
Lackeys are appointed all the time too (which can also be their bosses). The number of people paid by agencies like CIA to take specific action against their countries' interest is staggering.
>Can you point out any that were removed from office?
Here's a recentish example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn
It's incredible how easy you can setup this kind of situations to "happen" to people you want to take out of the game.
Sometimes you don't even have to set them up, you just know their tendencies (from watching them) and just decide when it's best time to act on them or ignore them.
Of course, those actions being covert, and the quality of police work being what it is, don't expect those things to be unmasked in time and be able to be proved 100%. Usually we learn about those manipulation after decades, when somebody opens his mouth, or some files are declassified.
But if you study the post-war history of places like Latin America, Italy, Greece, etc, you can find tons of such instances that have been verified (by declassified agency files, court documents, reporting etc).
Here's some convenient one-tome insight on such affairs (the critisicm to which has been pedantic BS):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_...
This is honestly the funniest thing i have heard. Europe is usually literally fighting over who gets to open and push investigations to regulate these companies first. That is often the main holdup. They sit in rooms drawing straws to see who gets to reap the political benefit of being anti-US.
How easy indeed
It all comes down to perception, the other guy is not the right
(Full disclosure: I've been directly involved in the antitrust efforts of at least one of these companies)
If you do not know, the NSA is paying American cloud providers for spying. That is an illegal subsidy that is killing the European cloud industry. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/23/nsa-prism-costs...
One could argue that the regulatory environment in Europe has prevented local success, you don't get to baselessly blame these companies (none of which have gained their position undeservedly) and spue accusations without proof.
Also you don't get to blame the US for Europe's lack or enterprise, I suggest you ask an economist for a better excuse.
Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft...
Rules regarding abuse of dominant position could have been applied much stricter. Some of these companies have 90-something percent market share on several of the geographic and product markets they operate in. But not one of them has been forced to split up. MS was forced not to include IE in Windows and MS and Intel were fined (fined!), but not one of them have been forced to open access to (or just make it possible to export) their social graph. Apple is still allowed to block other content providers from selling movies and music iPhone and iPad. The iphone costs more or less the same all over Europe as does the music and movies on it. Amazon has been allowed to apply predatory pricing for more than a decade.
Tax laws could have been designed so that companies were taxed on their European profits, just like the European companies they compete against.
These companies barely employ Europeans, barely pay any European tax, but they hold thousands of European patents and make hundreds of billions of euro in Europe and operate in markets where there is curiously enough still not/no longer serious competition from European companies.
I don't believe for a second that NSA hasn't used their spying to improve American competitiveness.