Ireland is amongst eight EU countries being investigated by the European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti over company taxation schemes.
Mr Monti said at a news conference, earlier today that he wanted to determine if tax benefits the countries offered constituted unfair government aid.
The Commission also asked four other EU states to halt certain tax advantages which the Commission believes are no longer justified following the creation of a single European market.
The action touched off a blast from the finance ministers of Belgium and Luxembourg, who said that the investigation threatened negotiations on other tax reforms related to bank savings accounts.
Mr Monti said, however, he was taking aim at preferential tax arrangements granted to multinational, financial services or insurance companies.
He said he wanted to make certain no tax measures in the EU are being used to support companies in a way that is incompatible with the single market.Monti said the 15 cases were only the beginning and decisions on further investigations will be made in a matter of months, not of years.The countries that are targets of state aid probes apart from Ireland are Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Britain.The countries being asked to halt certain tax advantages are Belgium, Greece, Italy and Sweden, the Commission said.
Monti cited a 1997 finance ministers' decision as the basis for his actions, but two finance ministers said he missed the point.
At the 1997 meeting, EU finance ministers agreed to link the problem of tax advantages with the problem of how to deal with taxation of savings held in other EU countries.
Since then the EU nations have held talks to solve both problems at once, as they consider exchanging information on account holders and ending special tax breaks for companies.
The countries themselves drew up a list of 66 potentially unfair tax breaks they offered. The European Commission used 15 from that list for its action on today, and that prompted the criticism.