Belgium: Anti-smoking Campaigners Accuse Tobacco Lobby after Office Break-in

Source from:  The Guardian 10/19/2012

Brussels police have swept the offices of two major public health organisations for bugs following a break-in at a building in the rue de Tréves in which laptops and documents relating to their battles against the tobacco industry were stolen. It is a convenient address for those involved in lobbying and monitoring the European political process, just five minutes walk from the Parliament building, and there are eight floors of well-equipped offices for burglars to investigate. But it appears they were interested only in those of the European Smoke Free Partnership and the European Public Health Alliance on the 5th and 1st floors. A third office – a company that has clients on the other side of the argument – was also entered, but nothing was taken.

The burglars struck within 48 hours of the resignation of the European health commissioner, John Dalli. On Wednesday, he revealed that he had been forced out by commission president José Manuel Barroso over a report by EU anti-fraud investigators accusing a fellow Maltese of attempting to sell influence over the commissioner to a Swedish tobacco company. Amid the confusion and the denials of wrongdoing on all sides, one thing looks certain – the tough new tobacco products directive that Dalli wanted to launch this autumn will not go ahead on schedule. It may even be stymied for this parliament and pushed back beyond the next elections – or be dead in the water. 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 knows the strength of the evidence, because Olaf – the EU anti-fraud office – is refusing to release the report that led to Dalli's downfall. It is now being passed to the Maltese judiciary. In March, Silvio Zammit, a Maltese entrepreneur, circus owner and deputy mayor (until Thursday) of the small town of Sliema was in contact with Swedish Match, a tobacco company based in Stockholm. It makes snus, a moist tobacco product that is placed under the lip. It is illegal in the rest of the EU. The company, part-owned by tobacco giant Philip Morris, hoped to persuade the European commission that snus is healthier than cigarettes because it is not inhaled. Swedish Match complained to Olaf that Zammit had asked for a very large sum of money – how much, nobody is saying – to arrange a meeting with the health commissioner. No meeting took place and no money changed hands. Dalli, in a videoed interview with a Brussels political paper, said the investigators' report "stated there was no proof at all that I was involved in any misdeed" and that no decision of the commission had been jeopardised. But the report claimed there was "some circumstantial evidence that I was aware of what was happening," said Dalli. "This I refute completely." Swedish Match claims Zammit came to it. It told the Guardian that it hoped the events of recent days would not undermine the tobacco products directive, "which we have eagerly anticipated for the past 12 years. Our hope and expectation is that this time snus will be judged on its own scientific merits, that it will receive a fair trial and that the processes followed by the commission in the review of the TPD will continue to be transparent and fair." But Dalli in his video read out an email which he said was from the company to Zammit, asking for an informal meeting with the commissioner in Brussels. It asked how much Zammit would charge. "These people were offering to bribe Zammit to arrange a meeting with me," said Dalli. "He never asked me for any meeting with these people." On his Facebook page, Zammit is equally robust: "I categorically state that I have never received any payment from Swedish Match or Estoc (the European Smokeless Tobacco Council). My role was that of a lobbyist and all my contribution in the matter was above board and regular, in consonance with established practices. Furthermore, I confirm that I was contacted by the foreign party and it was them that set the ball rolling,"he wrote. He adds that he has resigned as deputy mayor and as a member of the Sliema local council to fight to clear his name. 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 – is at a disadvantage because she now has no computer. Whoever burgled the office took it, together with the computer of staff at the European Public Health Alliance who were also working on the tobacco legislation. "They made it look very messy, so it looks ransacked, but they have taken specific things from specific persons," she said. Those things were related to the Dalli affair. "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," she said. The new directive was intended to try to reduce the temptation for younger people – and particularly women – to start smoking, she said. Dalli said in his post-resignation interview that it would have imposed new restrictions on smokeless tobacco products and banned flavourings such as chocolate and strawberry. It would also have required graphic pictures of the damage smoking does on 75% of every packet. But it is now on ice. It should have gone to a consultation stage at the end of this month, but nothing will be done before a new health commissioner is appointed. That means there is unlikely to be time to get it through before new European parliament elections in 2014. "This ambitious proposal on the side of public health to protect young people from beginning to smoke will not be continued," said Berteletti Kemp. "It is a mess." Enditem