Whistleblower MEP Claims EU Cover-up over Dalligate  

Source from:  PublicServiceEurope.com (uk)  04/17/2013

Those at the top of the European Commission and European Parliament might be attempting to 'keep the dirt inside' over the scandal relating to the tobacco industry - claims MEP.

Sometimes political scandals could rock the political establishment so hard that the powers that be consider it is in the interest of everyone - and especially themselves - to keep the dirt inside. This is what the French call a ''raison d'etat'. In the case of Dalligate, it seems there is a raison d'Europe. What European Parliament President Martin Schulz, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and others would not like to see in the middle of a European identity crisis, is that the dirt of Dalligate comes out.

Dalligate is named after John Dalli, the former European Health Commissioner who was dismissed by Barroso on October 16, 2012, without even being given the opportunity to learn what he was accused of - and without even giving him the chance to consult with his lawyer and family. More and more key witnesses in the so-called bribery-case, on which the file against Dalli was based, appear to have allegedly lied.

On December 6, 2012, Dalli filed a complaint against the company Swedish Match. It cooperates with Philip Morris and is responsible for filing the complaint against Dalli. He testified for three hours on March 20, 2013, to the Belgian judiciary and gave them the tape recording of a conversation between my colleague Jose Bové and two officials of Swedish Match that was recorded in the European Parliament. During this conversation, Johann Gabriellson said that a meeting described by Swedish match lobbyist Gayle Kimberly - in which she claimed to have met with Zammit who then asked for the money in return for a favourable directive - never in fact took place.

A few days ago, the Times of Malta alleged that the head of the government's internal audit agency and contact person for the European Union's anti-fraud unit - OLAF - Rita Schembri ''lied under oath to a review board investigating allegations that she had abused her public office - the spotlight fell on her when former commissioner Dalli pointed to her role in the EU investigation that led to his resignation''. She served as a coordinator for the Maltese part of the investigation involving Dalli and worked closely with OLAF boss Giovanni Kessler.

The newspaper reported: ''The review board chaired by the Auditor General, Anthony Mifsud, concluded Ms Schembri's position as head of the Internal Audit and Investigation Department had been 'seriously compromised'. Besides multiple instances where Ms Schembri gave false evidence to the board, the review board also noted that she had made illicit use of official data for personal gain.''

Well Kessler and Barroso: is the investigation that you used to sack a commissioner at gunpoint built on a solid base? It is not surprising that on December 24, 2012, the lawyers of Dalli filed a complaint with the European Court of Justice against the European Commission for violation of Article 245 of the treaty, which deals with the way the organisation can dismiss people. One thing is clear from all this: we are six months on and the truth about Dalligate is still not clear.

What is even more worrying is that the European Parliament seems to be working along with the commission to keep the dirt inside. Last week the three presidents of the biggest political groups in the EP decided - in agreement with EP president Schulz - that contrary to an earlier agreement Barroso and Kessler should no longer be heard in the EP. And as expected our call as greens for a special committee was also rejected after delaying the decision for months.

Even after several hearings and lots of questions by the EP Committee of Budgetary Control, there still remain too many dark spots in the Daligate affair. It seems that the whole purpose of this affair was to delay the introduction of the EU Tobacco Products Directive. We want to know which role the tobacco industry played in this and what was the role of Catherine Day, secretary-general of the commission - and other officials - in this process. Day has postponed the interservice consultation process for the EU Tobacco Products directive on at least at two occasions.

After the behaviour of Schulz and others, we are determined to end the secrecy around Dalligate. The current rules concerning the EC and lobbying appear to be too weak. A special and temporary EP committee would have been a useful working method to investigate what goes wrong and explore ways on how to improve rules on transparency, on ethics and on lobbying. But now that the conference of political group leaders have 'killed' the proposal of such a special committee, I can only hope that individual colleagues join us in trying to find out what really happened and what kind of role the tobacco industry played in this dirty game.

Bart Staes MEP is a member of the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament. Enditem