Green MEPs seek answers on Dalligate in Malta meetings

Green MEPs José Bové and Bart Staes will tomorrow meet the Prime Minister's chief of staff, home affairs minister Manuel Mallia and Commissioner of Police Peter-Paul Zammit, in a series of meetings related to the resignation of former European Commissioner John Dalli.

The two MEPs had published a recording of a conversation with a Swedish Match official which had revealed that an alleged meeting which implicated Dalli in a multi-million bribe to the company, had never taken place.

They will host a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

But their calls for a special inquiry committee were turned down by the European Parliament's president.

Bové and Staes have called on European Commission President José Barroso to explain the reasons behind the dismissal of John Dalli from the Commission, in the wake of a leaked report of the OLAF investigation that found no direct evidence of the former commissioner's involvement in an alleged bribe.

The report, published by MaltaToday, although two of its pages and a three-page interview with the EC's 'Sanco' health director-general Paola Testori Coggi are missing. "This report clearly shows that the OLAF investigation was unable to provide conclusive evidence of the direct involvement of the former European Commissioner John Dalli in the attempt to influence a bribe," the two MEPs have said.

Dalli was accused by OLAF director Giovanni Kessler of having been aware, going by circumstantial evidence of telephone toll records, that Silvio Zammit, a canvasser, was using the commissioner's name to solicit a €60 million bribe from Swedish Match to influence the reversal of a trading ban.

Bart Staes, vice-president of the budgetary control committee, said the OLAF report could not be described as an impartial report and pointed out that the OLAF report had shown "an unacceptable collusion" between Swedish Match, lobbyist and former head of the Council's legal services Michel Petite, and Catherine Day, secretary-general of the European Commission.

Bové has also asked European Parliament president Martin Schulz "to propose a solution to find a way out of this major crisis" after his request for a special commission on the Dalligate affair was turned down by other European Parliament leaders.