Dalli accuses Barroso of forcing him to resign

Commission says Dalli offered his resignation but ex-commissioner denies official version of events.

The European Commission insists that John Dalli resigned of his own accord in order to “defend his reputation and that of the Commission”. But Dalli’s version of events is rather different.

The commissioner is not only denying the allegations made against him by OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud office, he is also denying that he chose to resign. The now former commissioner told the newspaper New Europe yesterday (17 October) that he was forced to resign by Commission President José Manuel Barroso in a meeting at 4pm on Tuesday (16 October), and that he was not given a chance to view the report to see the full allegations against him.

Giovanni Kessler, OLAF’s director-general, said yesterday that there were “a number of unambiguous pieces of circumstantial evidence” indicating that Dalli was aware that a Maltese entrepreneur was attempting to sell access to him to a Swedish manufacturer of the smokeless tobacco product snus.

Snus, which is sold in loose form or in paper sachets that users stuff under their lips, is banned in the EU with the exception of Sweden, which negotiated an exemption prior to joining the Union in 1995. Snus manufacturers have been fighting to have the ban lifted in a revision of the tobacco products directive, which is imminent.

Party connection

The entrepreneur has been identified by Malta Today newspaper and by Dalli himself as Silvio Zammit, a deputy mayor of the town of Sliema in Malta who is from the same centre-right Nationalist Party as Dalli. Kessler would not confirm the identity of the entrepreneur. But he said the person in question asked the company Swedish Match for “a large amount of money” in return for using his influence with Dalli in order to change the proposal to end the ban on snus.

No such transaction was ever made, and Swedish Match told the Commission about the incident. “It was a pretty surprising and strange offer, it involved money. It involved influencing the tobacco products directive regarding the snus ban,” said Swedish Match’s director of international media and public relations, Rupini Bergström. “We regarded it as a pretty credible thing that he actually did have this relationship, so we decided to report this to OLAF.”

“We have on many occasions sought to meet Mr Dalli to represent our views on regulation,” she added. “But never have we been prepared to bribe officials in the course of our work.”

Kessler stressed that the commissioner himself was not involved in the offer but he was aware of it, though he would not say if this was before or after the offer was made.

Neither the Commission nor OLAF would comment on specifically how Dalli was aware of the interaction. “At no stage did Commissioner Dalli take action to prevent or disassociate himself from the facts or to report the circumstances of which he was aware,” said Kessler. “If I knew [something like this], I would for sure take any action to block it. This has not happened in this case.”

Code of conduct

Asked whether it is a specific offence in the Commission’s code of conduct to be aware of such offers being made and not disclose them, a Commission spokesperson declined to comment. Kessler said that the Maltese entrepreneur organised two meetings between the commissioner and representatives of snus companies.

Kessler added that OLAF had found no evidence that the legislation had been affected by the events.

Jana Mittermaier, director of the European office of Transparency International, said the revelation was “a worrying sign that despite the efforts made in recent years to clean up, selling influence and personal connections may still be a feature of EU lobbying”.

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