Former European Commissioner John Dalli was barred by the code of conduct for Brussels' top functionaries from giving the consultancy he did in the Bahamas even if on a 'voluntary basis'.

European Commissioners are not meant to exercise a profession “whether gainful or not”, accor­ding to their 2011 code of conduct.

In his first extensive reaction to the International Herald Tribune story that revealed his trip to the Atlantic Ocean archipelago, Mr Dalli yesterday reiterated that he was merely involved in discussions on the setting up of a charitable organisation.

But even though he gave more information on the project and revealed that the project ran into billions of dollars, Mr Dalli said he could not disclose any more details because of “professional secrecy” and other issues.

But Mr Dalli at the time could not exercise an external profession.

The only activity that commissioners can conduct without first seeking approval are to deliver lectures connected with EU integration or European interests.

But Mr Dalli had not informed anyone within the Commission of his July trip to the tax haven at the time.

In fact, the European Commission is also contradicting Mr Dalli’s claim that he had informed his then Cabinet - the staff of his his private office - about the trip.

A spokeswoman for the Commission said Mr Dalli’s Cabinet was not given any information about the trip and was not logged into the then Commissioner’s diary.

Asked about this yesterday, Mr Dalli insisted this was not true because a member of his Cabinet had seen the boarding pass for part of the July trip to the Bahamas.

However, The Sunday Times of Malta is informed Mr Dalli had accidentally passed on a boarding pass, indicating a flight between Nassau and London Heathrow Airport on July 8 along with a batch of boarding passes for flights in which he had been on official EU business and which he intended claiming expenses for.

When the staff member queried the Bahamas boarding pass, Mr Dalli took it back, as he had passed it on by mistake and did not intend claiming expenses for it, according a Commission source.

However, the source insisted, nobody from Mr Dalli’s Cabinet was aware of any other details of the trip, or knew what the former Commissioner had travelled to the Bahamas for.

Still, on the basis of this incident in which he passed on the Nassau boarding pass by mistake, Mr Dalli insisted yesterday that he had informed his Cabinet.

“The end result is that the Cabinet knew,” he said.

When it was put to Mr Dalli that he should have declared the trip and his activities to avoid the sort of suspicions that this latest revelation now raises, the former Commissioner said: “No, I did not feel the need to inform the Commission. Now, if I have done something criminal because I did not inform them, let them tell me.”

'I did not feel I needed to inform the Commission'

According to Mr Dalli’s own account, he was staying at a villa in the Bahamas rented out by a company to host mostly US businessmen in discussions over a wide range of “philanthropically oriented” business deals.

He said the individuals behind the idea were a large network of Christian evangelic philanthropists who wanted to pool together to set up a fund which would invest in African commercial activities in farming, mining, oil and energy with a view to pour back substantial parts of the profits back into underprivileged places like Niger, Ethiopia, Ghana and even Malta.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com

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