ANP
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NOS News•today, 18:00•Amended today, 18:27
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Former European Commissioner and VVD prominent Neelie Kroes secretly lobbied for the American company Uber in 2015 and 2016. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has come to that conclusion, which has examined 124,000 internal documents of the tech company.
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In the Netherlands, Platform Investico, Trouw and the Financieele Dagblad conducted research into the so-called Uber Files† The documents, which consist of emails, minutes, memos and chat messages, were initially leaked to the British newspaper The Guardian, which passed them on to the ICIJ.
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Kroes lobbied for Uber, even though the European Commission had explicitly banned her from taking a position at the tech company. The company wanted to influence the taxi legislation and a criminal investigation by the Public Prosecution Service through the former European Commissioner. On behalf of Uber, Kroes contacted various directors and top officials and with Prime Minister Rutte.
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Giving informal advice
She was already asked to join Uber’s advisory board as a member of the European Commission. Almost immediately after she quit as European Commissioner in November 2014, she started to represent the company’s interests, albeit informally. At the end of 2015, she applied for permission from the European Commission to join the body that advises Uber’s chief executive.
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But the ethics committee rejected that request because it violated the code of conduct for former European Commissioners. Commission chairman Juncker also rejected Kroes’ request, in view of her previous responsibilities. He instructed her to observe a cooling-off period, which has been set up to avoid conflicts of interest for European Commissioners who lobby for companies after their Brussels career.
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After the rejection, Kroes continued to lobby informally and received orders directly from Uber’s leadership. In 2015, for example, she spoke with Prime Minister Rutte, the then VVD ministers Kamp and Schultz, State Secretary Mansveld of Infrastructure and the Environment and Minister Dijsselbloem of Finance. Immediately after the cooling-off period expired in 2016 she joined the advisory boardfor a fee of two tons per year.
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special envoy
Professor Christoph Demmke, an integrity expert and advisor to the European Parliament, thinks it is a “clear case of conflict of interest,” he told Investico. Kroes could lose her pension for violating European codes of conduct.
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According to emeritus professor of public administration Leo Huberts, it does not matter that she only formally joined Uber in 2016. He says there needs to be a broader view than just formal employment.
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The Ministry of Economic Affairs, which the service falls under, says that such an envoy should not approach ministers or officials on behalf of a company. Incidentally, Uber was already valued at 51 billion dollars in 2014 and for that reason it was no longer a start-up.
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