On Thursday 22 September, the European Commission said that it has asked the former commissioner for competition, Neelie Kroes, for clarifications before it decides on what measures, if any, to take. According to several European media sources, the former competition commissioner (2004 2009) is alleged to have been a director of a Bahamas company during her term in office. However, she did not mention this in her statement of interests.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, is struggling to restore the image of an institution increasingly under fire, what with José Manuel Barroso's new 'revolving door' job with Goldman Sachs and now this ill-timed error from Kroes, who is reported to have forgotten to include her position as director with Mint Holdings Ltd, a company located in the Bahamas, one of the most infamous tax havens, in her statement of interests.
At a press conference in Brussels, European Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas announced that the president had written to Kroes that morning to request a number of clarifications and that once all the facts had come to light, the Commission would decide what to do next. The spokesperson went on to stress that the Commission has extremely strict rules and that these have to be complied with to the letter by all those who have the honour to serve the European Commission.
The spokesperson declined to speculate on possible sanctions (stripping of pension rights, for instance) until the alleged facts have been clearly established.
A question of sticking to the rules. Before looking at tightening up the rules, we need to start applying the ones we already have, which are very strict, the spokesperson commented, in response to questions from the press. "But if somebody decides to omit information, you can have all the rules you want, they won't be enough", Schinas added.
Kroes served as commissioner for competition between 2004 and 2009, before holding the position of vice-president of the European Commission, then under José Manuel Barroso, until 2014.
Schinas went on to say that the Commission needed to be able to trust the statements and documents of the commissioners, but that it was not possible to avoid every eventuality and send a police team out to the Bahamas, whilst acknowledging that it did look like Kroes had broken the rules. The Commission is entitled to verify the commissioners' statements of interest, the spokesperson added, but did not go into detail.
A breach of the commissioners' code of conduct? The confidential documents to which the media partners of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) had access, in the framework of the Bahamas Leaks investigation, revealed that Kroes was director of an offshore company registered in the Bahamas between 4 July 2000 and 1 October 2009. Although it is not in itself illegal to manage a company of this kind, Kroes certainly will have breached one point of the commissioners' code of conduct dating from April 2011, which requires the commissioners to declare all positions they have held over the last ten years on the boards of directors or supervisory boards of companies or other entities carrying out any commercial or economic activities. However, Kroes' statement of interests makes absolutely no mention of her directorship with Mint Holdings Ltd, the company at the eye of the storm. The Dutch commissioner therefore failed to declare the offshore company in the Bahamas of which she was a director during her term as commissioner between 2004 and 2009.
Kroes mounts her defence. The former Dutch transport minister said that she left her post with Mint Holdings in 2002 and left the company altogether in 2004, when she started her first term as European commissioner, according to Dutch media reports. Following her second term at the Commission in 2014, she joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch and now works for the American company Uber. Kroes' lawyer admitted that the commissioner had not mentioned this position in her statement. She filled in her statement in good faith, because at the time, she was no longer a director of that company. However, following an administrative error, she remained on the company's register, even though she never attended meetings and had no involvement in the activities of Mint Holdings. Her lawyer went on to stress that she would fully inform the pof the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, of matters and take full responsibility. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)