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MEPs ask Schulz to keep them abreast of Dalli developments
Chairman of budgetary control committee ask EP president to keep them updated with developments over OLAF report.
1 November 2012, 12:00am
Matthew Vella
Matthew Vella
2 min read
German liberal MEP Michael Theurer.
MEPs from the budgetary control committee that met OLAF director Giovanni Kessler to demand details on the resignation of former commissioner John Dalli, have called on European Parliament president Martin Schulz to request "adequate access" to the final OLAF case report.
The chairman of the budgetary control committee, MEP Michael Theurer, wrote to socialist MEP Martin Schulz to keep him abreast of decisions he and the conference of presidents will be taking on the Dalli case, after a request they made to Commission president José Manuel Barroso for more information on the OLAF investigation.
In a letter to Barroso, the conference of EP presidents requested access to OLAF's case report on the complaint made by the tobacco producer Swedish Match, which alleged that Silvio Zammit, a former canvasser for John Dalli in Malta, had request €60 million in a bid to influence tobacco laws.
The MEPs from the budgetary control committee also have requested "comprehensive information on all circumstances surrounding the resignation of former Commissioner John Dalli."
Sources privy to a closed meeting of budgetary control committee MEPs said OLAF director-general Giovanni Kessler last week could not furnish any more details than had already been divulged on the circumstances regarding Dalli's resignation.
German Liberal MEP Michael Theurer, the chairman of the budgetary control committee, told EUobserver on 25 October that Kessler he gave the MEPs hints on what the report contains but cited confidentiality rules to stop short of real answers. The source noted: "He [Kessler] said: 'Imagine if I met my friend [a middleman] and some lobbyists in my flat. How would you feel about it?' But he phrased it in a very hypothetical way. We asked him: 'So what are the facts?' And he said: 'I can't give you the facts'."
Dalli lost his job last week after Olaf gave Barroso what it calls "circumstantial evidence" that he tried to solicit a bribe from a tobacco firm.
Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...
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What if Barroso is involved in all this matter since after all he fired John Dalli but failed to give us any details of what had actually happened ? So my question is - Is Mr Barrosa involved in this mix up organized by Kessler ? The more secrecy there is the more questions are asekd and doubts surface. This is Malta and not North Korea where you end up fired and in prison just because the Chiarman says so. Mr Barrosa acted like the North Korean Chairman so far and unless he gives us the real reason why he fired Mr Dalli, he is under reasonable suspicion that he is involeved in all this mud slinging matter, not to say Frame uP ! By the way, circumstantial evidence without corraboration is rubbish Mr Barroso. Don't be holier than the Pope as you will fall from the podium in a very fast manner !
