Monday

4th Dec 2023

  1. Investigations
  2. EU smoke & mirrors

EU court dismisses Dalli case

A former EU health commissioner, accused of soliciting bribes from a tobacco firm, lost his case against the European Commission for unlawful dismissal.

EU smoke & mirrors

EUobserver reporter Nikolaj Nielsen sheds new light on the Dalli lobbying scandal, which, by Barroso's own admission, threatened to bring down the EU executive, but which is not over yet.

Part I: From Peppi’s to Barroso’s

Part I of VIII: EUobserver takes a closer look at the Barroso commission's biggest scandal - tobacco lobbying and John Dalli - in events some say will haunt the EU "for the next 10 years".

Part II: Malta's 'Mr Teflon'

Part II of VIII: Prince William peers out of a black stretched luxury car as the vehicle turns down a street in Malta’s capital city, Valletta.

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Part III: Actors assemble for EU melodrama

The new EU health commissioner’s first known contact with a tobacco lobbyist was on 20 August 2010 at the five-star Kempinski Hotel on the Maltese island of Gozo.

Part V: Dalli’s big tobacco theory

John Dalli claims that his tough stand against tobacco as EU health commissioner led the industry to pull levers inside the European Commission to get him ousted from office.

Part VI: A circumstantial EU hanging

The EU’s anti-fraud office has no evidence in its report nailing Dalli and his accomplices on bribes which never exchanged hands in any case.

Part VII: €60mn Valentine's Day gift

While Silvio Zammit risks jail time and former EU health commission John Dalli is still under investigation, the witness to the prosecution, Gayle Kimberley, has largely escaped scrutiny.

Part VIII: A scandal 'for the next 10 years'

In her office on the 15th floor in the Altiero Spinelli wing of the European Parliament, German centre-right MEP Ingeborg Graessle shuffles some papers on a table and then pours two glasses of water.

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