So much drama recently, it’s better than anything on the telly. The case of the young woman with a drug abuse problem who, although about to have a baby, ended up in jail after repeatedly using her pregnancy to get away from it – jail not drugs – was more intriguing than anything on Eastenders.
Then, as quirky as anything in Castle, we heard about the demise of 480 cocks, 280 chickens, 17 rabbits and three pigs, because a farmer in custody on cocaine trafficking charges was not allowed by the prison authorities to go and feed them.
But by far the most dramatic was John Dalli’s abrupt “forced” (as he puts it) resignation as Commissioner responsible for Health just before the much-awaited EU’s revised Tobacco Products Directive.
Since substantial new restrictions on tobacco companies’ promotion of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, including banning e-cigarettes, were expected, this must have been a relief for the strong tobacco lobby. It had been disturbed enough by “rumours” on the report that contact had been made, or re-established, with Silvio Zammit, according to a published email, asking how much it would cost for a meeting to be arranged.
Tobacco has been controversial for a long time now. Despite warnings that smoking can more likely kill you than not, governments still allow its sale. Otherwise, some tell us, it would be the action of a Nanny State. So what governments do is put warnings, on cigarette packets that they can kill!
The tobacco lobby spends a lot of money to ensure tobacco, including any by-product not just cigarettes, stays on the market.
The sophisticated burglary at the offices of anti-tobacco campaigners in Brussels in which laptops and documents were stolen, but other valuables left untouched, two days after Dalli’s resignation and the conspiracy theories reminded me of John Grisham’s The Runaway Jury. Besides, the title is so apt for this case, since so many have elected themselves jurors through the media.
“Anti-tobacco campaigners are convinced that they are looking at a dirty tricks campaign designed to strangle the new directive (TPD) at birth. But nobody beyond Barroso and a few others know the strength of the evidence because the report has not been published”, said the Guardian’s health editor Sarah Boseley, on October 19.
“What we are witnessing is the biggest tobacco industry interference in public health policy at the European level. The backdrop to the burglary at our office is the political scene. We believe that is no coincidence,” said Florence Berteletti Kemp, director of the European Smoke Free Partnership, an alliance of the prominent health organisations Cancer Research UK, the European Respiratory Society and the European Heart Network, whose computer was stolen in the burglary.
“The new directive was intended to try to reduce the temptation for younger people – and particularly women – to start smoking,” she said in the Guardian article.
Gresham’s novel is about the shady shenanigans both the lawyers for the smoking and anti-smoking lobby get up to. Their end objective is always cash, lots of it. So it is not surprising that a young Maltese lawyer is being described as a central witness to the Dalli case.
According to Swedish Match, who tipped off OLAF, she was the person to whom the bribe request was made at the 10 February meeting. Dalli’s version, at a press conference, was that this lawyer did not seem to know much about Snus, was asking questions about it and he assumed that she might have somehow wanted to get involved with the lobbying.
Swedish Match is involved in a joint venture with tobacco giant Philip Morris to commercialise Snus and other smoke-free tobacco products outside Scandinavia and the US. It had hoped to persuade the European Commission that Snus is healthier than cigarettes because it is not inhaled.
I do not intend to be part of that ‘runaway jury’; what I am presenting are quotes in the press that seemed important and posing questions. It is up to the readers to reach their own conclusions. Of course until the full report is available one’s perception is limited. At the moment it is a matter of he said and he refuted. On Friday, 18, OLAF regretted that only “partial evidence” was provided to the media.
Meanwhile, MEPs wanted access to the contents of the OLAF report as presented to Mr Barroso. Due to the sensitivity of this report, MEPs will agree to have access to the report in a closed room and after signing a confidentiality declaration.
According to the Malta Times’ Ivan Camilleri, yesterday. “Hard evidence exists to prove that former European Commissioner John Dalli was aware that Silvio Zammit was asking for money in his name. Awareness was not a crime but a clear breach of ethics and misconduct”, the chief of the EU anti-fraud agency told a restricted closed-doors meeting with group coordinators of the European Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee.
Now, if this was a restricted closed doors meeting, how come we know about it?
According to the source of the restricted closed-doors meeting, Mr Kessler gave more details of OLAF’s investigations following the tip-off by the Swedish tobacco company Swedish Match.
If there was “hard evidence” why had OLAF reiterated publicly “its investigation found no conclusive evidence of the direct participation of Commissioner Dalli in the operation for requesting money”? We are all dying to know what the “hard evidence” is? It must be about “the number of unambiguous circumstantial pieces of evidence indicating that Mr Dalli was aware of the activities of the entrepreneur and of the fact that his name and position were being used for financial gain”.
“Mr Dalli was aware of what was going on and was well aware that his old friend (Silvio Zammit) was asking for money and setting up meetings on his behalf”, said Mr Kessler, stressing “Mr Dalli vehemently denied this with us but we have hard evidence showing this.”
“Mr Dalli had acted against the spirit of the Commissioners’ Code of Conduct and the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control, which Mr Dalli was well aware of. According to this convention, public servants cannot have contacts with the tobacco industry unless they declare it. Mr Dalli met them several times and did not declare it. This is a breach of the convention,” Mr Kessler, chief of the EU anti-fraud agency, said at the meeting.
He said his office had no evidence that the former Maltese minister had done anything illegal, or that he had pocketed money. “It is now up to the Maltese authorities to conduct their own investigations and see if Mr Dalli was involved directly.
Why is the report so sensitive? Who else is implicated? Closed doors seem to have their leaks anyway. So why can’t we all see the full picture?
We are told that it is up to the Maltese Authorities to make the report public.
Our AG has now read the report and passed his recommendations on to the Police. I am assuming that should mean that there are grounds for criminal proceedings, otherwise why pass it on?
John Dalli has been fiercely denying any wrongdoing and has held several press conferences answering questions on the case. This has annoyed Barroso to the point that he has threatened Dalli with a formal sacking, which would mean the loss of lucrative transition allowances and a pension.
Article published in the Malta Independent on Sunday, 28 October 2012