Dalli to run health and consumer affairs

John Dalli, Malta's Commissioner-designate, has been assigned the health and consumer policy portfolio by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso.

He described it yesterday as "important, significant and offering a lot of challenges".

Various Brussels insiders consider the dossier, which is at present administered by two separate commissioners, as "quite good for the smallest country in the EU".

"It is not a top level dossier but at the same time it's not insignificant," a senior EU official told The Times yesterday.

"I think Mr Dalli's portfolio is mid-range and it now depends on his personality and the way he develops the strategies to be administered by DG Sanco (Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs)," another official said.

Malta landed a better deal than some of the other small and mid-sized countries - Cyprus's Androulla Vassiliou was assigned education and multilingualism while Slovakia's Maros Sefcovic, though appointed vice president, ended up with the thorny administration dossier. It had been feared Mr Dalli would get a less important portfolio as a result of his late nomination.

Even Ireland is considered to have got a bad deal with its nominee Marie Geoghegan-Quinn made responsible for the low-key dossier of science and innovation.

At the same time, the most important portfolios have, as predicted, ended up in the laps of the nominees from the bigger member states.

The competition portfolio was assigned to Spanish Commissioner-designate Joaquin Almunia; France's Michel Barnier will be in charge of internal market and services; Gunter Oettinger, the German nominee, was given the energy portfolio; while Finnish Olli Rehn takes over economic and monetary affairs.

Home affairs, which will deal with immigration issues over the next five years, was assigned to Swedish nominee Cecilia Malmstrom, not a very good sign for Malta considering Sweden's lukewarm response to the island's lobbying for help on the issue.

Asked whether his assignment tallied with his original wish list, Mr Dalli said he was very used to being called by Prime Ministers to take on important tasks: "I never asked for anything, not even in this case, however, I think I can deliver even in these areas."

Apart from the DG Sanco, which employs almost 1,000 officials in Brussels, Luxembourg and Ireland, Mr Dalli will also be directly responsible for the European Food Safety Authority, based in Parma, Italy; the Community Plant Variety Office, situated in Angers, France; and the European Agency for Health and Consumers, located in Stockholm, Sweden.

An innovation in Mr Dalli's portfolio is the addition of responsibility for pharmaceutical products and the London-based European Medicines Agency, which currently falls under the remit of the Enterprise Commissioner.

The next hurdle for Mr Dalli is his hearing before MEPs. The three-hour grilling, which will test Mr Dalli's qualities and his possible conflicts of interest, will take place in the second week of January. It will be before the parliamentary committees responsible for the environment, public health and food safety and the Committee for the Internal Market and Consumer Policy.

The new commission will only get its green light based on MEPs' assessment of the commissioner-designates' performances during a vote in plenary on January 26.

The commission, the second to be headed by Mr Barroso, is then expected to start its work on February 1. The present Maltese Commissioner Joe Borg will step down on the same day.