"A book is an ebook is a #book!" tweeted Viviane Reding MEP in the wake of a European Court of Justice ruling that sided with the European Commission and said France and Luxembourg could not apply lower VAT rates to ebooks.

Member states are perfectly free to set reduced rates for the printed books, but ebooks are classed as an “electronically supplied service” and do not qualify for the same treatment as the paper variety.

Reding, a former European Commission vice-president, said it was now “urgent” for the commission to align the VAT rates for books and ebooks.

Newspaper and magazine publishers have been campaigning for an end to the discrepancy for some years now, as the same inconsistency applies to their print and digital editions.

In the Republic this means a print newspaper qualifies for the reduced rate of 9 per cent but the standard VAT rate of 23 per cent applies to a digital copy of exactly the same content. It makes no sense.

The European Newspaper Publishers’ Association and the European Magazine Media Association say the court ruling “demonstrated the need for the EU to update urgently its VAT system to the reality of today’s digital market”.

Or to paraphrase Reding, a paper is an epaper is a paper.