EU seeks clarification from former EC vice-president over Uber revelations
The EU executive has announced it will write to its former vice-president Neelie Kroes “for clarification” following revelations that she secretly helped Uber lobby the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, and a string of other national politicians.
The European Commission has been facing calls to open an immediate inquiry and “defend the EU’s integrity” in the wake of the reports, which showed that Kroes called Dutch government authorities about Uber less than six months after leaving her post as the EU’s top official on internet policy.
The calls for an investigation were part of the growing fallout from the Uber files, a trove of 124,000 documents exposing the ethically questionable practices that allowed the cab-hailing company to barge into new markets around the world.
In France, opposition parties have attacked the president, Emmanuel Macron, over his past help for the company, while in Italy, former prime minister Matteo Renzi came under pressure to clarify his alleged involvement.
The leak shines a light on Kroes, a veteran Dutch politician, who promised to do “my utmost” to help the company arrange a meeting with a senior European Commission official, despite a ban on lobbying her former colleagues at the time.
Kroes has denied any wrongdoing and said she did “not have any formal nor informal role at Uber before that particular date of May 2016,” when it was announced she was starting as chair of the company’s public policy advisory board.
The Uber files is a global investigation based on a trove of 124,000 documents that were leaked to the Guardian by Mark MacGann, Uber's former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The data consist of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the Silicon Valley
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