The EU has issued an instruction to Ireland to collect the taxes due. Ireland is a country and will collect the taxes, it doesn't make sense for Ireland to pay them.

A lot of people in Europe would like nothing better than for MS to pull out of the continent. We'd have a brief vacuum which dozens of companies would strive to fill. With the monopolist out of a multi-billion Euro market, there would be huge competition and a massive drive in product development in order to try to get a share of the immense rewards on offer.

Hmmm, competition, product development, advances in the IT industry. Exxxxcellent indeed. But it won't happen. MS might be p!$$ed by this, but they're far too smart to let any competition get such a large foothold.