Just two months after its former president joined Goldman Sachs, the European Commission has been caught up in another corporate scandal.<br /><br /> This time involving the EU’s ex-anti trust czar Neelie Kroes, a Dutch politician.<br /><br /> She was found to have been listed as the director of an offshore company in the Bahamas during her tenure.<br /><br /> A European Commission spokesman said the institution was unaware that this overlapped with her time in Brussels.<br /><br /> “There are certain things that even the strictest rules like ours cannot fix. This was the case of our former president, who made the choice to go to work for a certain bank,” said Margaritis Schinas.<br /><br /> “This is now the case of the former commissioner who apparently did not respect the rules and did not tell the Commission about it.”<br /><br /> Former commission president Jose Manuel Barroso is already facing an ethics probe over his role at Goldman Sachs; the ex-Portuguese prime minister denies he broke any rules.<br /><br /> Carl Dolan of Transparency International told euronews that these corporate appointments and the ‘revolving door’ between the public and private sector erode trust between voters and lawmakers.<br /><br /> “All this reinforces in the public’s mind the idea that there are lots of potential for conflict of interests with Commissioners moving to private industry,” said Dolan.<br /><br /> “So I think the Commission needs to be much more forceful, much tougher both in the rules and in the implementation of the rules.”<br /><br /> A lawyer for Neelie Kroes said it was a mix-up that the ex-Dutch parliamentarian had not resigned before taking her role in Brussels.<br /><br /> He said his client believed the firm had been wound up two years before she accepted her EU job.<br />
