Report says other officials guilty of Dalli’s infraction

Meetings with tobacco lobbyists are allegedly rife throughout the European Commission.

A report released by Corporate Europe Observatory today (14 December) concludes that undeclared meetings with tobacco lobbyists, the purported reason for this dismissal of former EU health commissioner John Dalli, are rife throughout the European Commission.

The Commission has yet to disclose the specific reasons for Dalli’s dismissal. But in response to 154 questions put forward by MEPs on the subject, the EU executive implied that the fact that Dalli held meetings with tobacco lobbyists without disclosing them to the Commission was because of a breach of the Commission’s code of conduct.

Giovanni Kessler, the head of the EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF which conducted the Dalli investigation, mentioned to MEPs that Dalli’s undeclared meetings were also in violation of an article in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which the EU is a signatory. The convention requires that any meetings with the tobacco industry be conducted in a transparent way.

But the CEO report reveals that, in fact, the Commission’s health department appears to have been the most compliant with the WHO rules. “The rest of the European Commission seems to simply ignore the WHO rules,” concludes the report, adding that the health department, “was the only one which showed any signs of implementing a transparency policy.”

The report outlines a number of meetings that took place between other Commission departments and tobacco lobbyists that were not declared. This includes several meetings between Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso’s cabinet and his department’s Secretariat-General has had several undisclosed meetings with tobacco industry lobbyists, according to a freedom of information request filed by CEO.

“If Dalli’s resignation is based on a violation of the WHO rules, then numerous high-level Commission officials should also resign,” the report concludes. “The Commission has not fully implemented the WHO guidelines despite obligations to do so.”

A spokesperson for the European Commission said that the meetings referred to by the report, “have been handled properly, in accordance with the rules applicable, and we have been transparent about them.”

“The Commission has met with several anti-tobacco campaigners over the years,” she added. “No rules were violated.”

The European Health Alliance has asked Tonio Borg, the new health commissioner, to commit to not meeting tobacco lobbyists. Borg has not responded to the request.

The revision of the Tobacco Products Directive, which sparked off the Dalli controversy, will be put forward next Wednesday (19 December), a month earlier than expected.

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