EU’s massive fine to Google will help fund Brussels coffers
The €4.6 billion ($5.26 billion) sanction was issued to Google in 2018, and the tech giant finally paid up.
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- Google’s €4.6 billion EU antitrust fine now boosts Brussels’ budget after years of appeals
- The payment reinforces Brussels’ legal authority and intensifies its broader crackdown on Big Tech
- The European Commission is set to unveil more decisions against Google over the coming week
Earlier this month, American tech giant Google finally paid a €4.6 billion ($5.26 billion) fine, issued to the company by the EU back in 2018. The White House hates European regulatory proceedings against US firms already – just wait until it finds out all these billions flow into the bloc’s budget.
The EU hit Google with the mega fine for violating competition rules by imposing restrictions on smartphone producers using its Android operating system.
After years of disputing the punishment in court, Google finally paid the antitrust fine – and interest – earlier this month after the EU’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), confirmed the 8-year-old ruling and dismissed the tech company’s appeal (PDF).
And since the European Commission’s revenues, which include such fines as well as customs duties, automatically feed into the EU budget, Google will inadvertently help the bloc raise some much-needed cash, Politico points out.
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The EU budget is usually made up predominantly of government contributions. It’s used to finance the bloc’s priorities, including generous subsidies to farmers and payouts to poorer member states.
Google’s EU fine actually amounts to over 2% of the Union’s total budget for 2026. It’s a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the €2 trillion ($2.26 trillion) cash pot planned for the 2028-2034 budget cycle.
To finance the latter, France wants to tax US digital giants, including Google. Germany, among others, opposes the idea.
But the very fact that the CJEU has sided with the European regulators is sort of an endorsement of Brussels’ antitrust crackdown on American Big Tech.
Google’s EU fine actually amounts to over 2% of the Union’s total budget for 2026.
In fact, according to the Financial Times, the European Commission is set to unveil more decisions against Google over the coming week, escalating enforcement against Big Tech.
Fines worth hundreds of millions of euros in separate decisions against Google may be issued, and the enforcement action is set to also include the threat of daily penalty payments and fresh regulatory orders under the EU’s Digital Markets Act.
Google is clearly worried. On Wednesday, the company urged the CJEU to dismiss EU antitrust regulators’ appeal against a lower court ruling that scrapped a €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) fine, issued to Google in 2019 for preventing rivals from placing search advertisements on the publishers’ websites.
