ANPNeelie Kroes
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 20:10
Former European Commissioner and VVD prominent Neelie Kroes has not broken any European rules with her lobbying work for taxi service Uber. This is what the European anti-fraud agency OLAF says.
The agency investigated Kroes last year after publications about her lobbying work in the so-called Uber Files. According to a statement from OLAF, the investigation into Kroes was recently closed and no violations of rules of conduct for members of the European Commission were found. There are therefore no recommendations from the agency.
OLAF’s report has been forwarded to the President of the European Commission. OLAF tells the ANP news agency that it will not make any further substantive comments.
‘Exempted from any form of blame’
Kroes himself had also sent a press release earlier in the day stating that the investigation had been closed and that no violations had been identified. “During the long-running OLAF investigation, I was held to secrecy which prevented me from publicly defending myself against the false allegations,” she wrote in that statement.
“Even though I knew from day 1 that I had done nothing wrong, it is nevertheless very pleasant that this whole matter is now behind us once and for all and I am unconditionally absolved of any form of blame.”
Uber Files
In 2022, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) stated after an investigation into the so-called Uber Files that Kroes secretly lobbied for the American tech company in 2015 and 2016. At the time, she had only just retired as European Commissioner for Digital Affairs.
According to the ICJ, she did not have the Commission’s permission for her lobbying work at the time, which means that as a former European Commissioner she may have violated the integrity rules. The Commission asked Kroes for clarification shortly after her lobbying work became public. She then sent a letter of explanation, which was examined by the Commission.
Shortly after her period as European Commissioner, Kroes was appointed by the Dutch government as special envoy for the StartupDelta, a government initiative to help start-ups.
Kroes states that she “had contact with a large number of Dutch and foreign companies in this context in order to promote the Dutch entrepreneurial climate for start-up companies in the broadest sense of the word”. Uber was one of those companies. “It was therefore extremely disappointing that I was accused of issues that really made no sense,” Kroes said in her statement.
2023-12-22 19:10:28
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