Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe at the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, on January 26, 2018. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Leaders of major economies like President Donald Trump are making the case for lower corporate taxes and Europe should pay attention, Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told CNBC at the World Economic Forum on Friday. Asked if he believed Trump was setting an example on tax policy, Donohoe was positive. "Do I believe the mood is changing on corporate tax globally? The answer is yes," he said. "You have to look at what President Trump has done, you have to look at the state of the U.K., you have to look at what President Macron said earlier in the week," he said, referencing the French president's Davos speech in which he proposed cutting some of France's infamously high taxes.

In late December, a Republican-led U.S. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs act, overhauling the U.S. tax system and slashing corporate taxes from 35 to 21 percent. The move, Donohoe said, was making European leaders think again about their own corporate tax propositions. Ireland is something of a poster child for economic recovery, having pulled itself out of dire financial straits after 2008 through a combination of extensive austerity, a bailout program and the creation of an ultra low-tax investment environment. At 12.5 percent, its corporate tax rate is among the lowest in the EU. American multinationals alone have more than 700 operations in Ireland, a testament to the policy's success. By 2014, the country's GDP growth rate had rebounded to 4.8 percent from a severe contraction between 2008-09.