EU urged to investigate ex-politician’s Uber links and rein in tech lobbyists
EU authorities have been urged to investigate a former politician linked to Uber and consider stripping the cab-hailing company of access passes to the European parliament, amid growing calls to rein in tech lobbyists.
Nearly two dozen Socialist Democrat and Green MEPs wrote to the European Commission on Tuesday calling for an investigation into its former vice-president Neelie Kroes over documents that appear to show she helped Uber lobby the Dutch government soon after leaving her post in 2014 as the EU’s top official for internet policy.
Kroes has denied any inappropriate behaviour. In the wake of the revelations the commission promised to write to her asking for “clarification” of media reports.
The demand for an EU inquiry comes as some politicians weigh up tighter rules on lobbying after the publication of the Uber files, a trove of data leaked to the Guardian and shared with media in 29 countries via the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
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 giant's most senior executives, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing papers and invoices.
The leaked records cover 40 countries and span 2013 to 2017, the period in which Uber was aggressively expanding across the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, duped police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments across the world.
To facilitate a global investigation in the public interest, the Guardian shared the data with
Read more on theguardian.com
