Europe must lead the way on a digital tax for technology giants if a global consensus can't be reached, according to the EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

Ms Vestager, who is considered a contender to become the next president of the European Commission, said that “we are becoming an increasingly digital world and it will be a huge problem if we do not find a way to raise [digital] taxes.”

There is currently disagreement among EU members and global governments over how to implement a so-called "GAFA tax" - named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon - to ensure the global internet giants pay a fair share of taxes in Europe.

France has been driving hard for such a tax, but at a meeting of EU finance meetings over the weekend, Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Denmark blocked a draft EU-wide proposal, officials said.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), meanwhile, is currently looking into an overhaul of global tax laws on tech giants.

The organisation has warned that an inability to reach a global consensus on how to tax the digital economy could lead to “international tax chaos.”

“The best thing is a global solution. But if we want to obtain results in a reasonable period of time, Europe must take the lead,” Ms Vestager told the France Inter radio station on Monday.