Beyond the unfair dismissal claim, tomorrow’s hearing will surely reverberate in Brussels in the coming days and will affect the Dalligate debate generally.
One key point to emerge is the emphasis of Mr Barroso on the impropriety of the undeclared meetings that Mr Dalli had with the tobacco industry.
He also made the point that had Mr Dalli stayed on, in the lack of a convincing explanation for the allegations raised by OLAF, his tenure and the Commission as a whole would have been undermined in the eyes of the public.
Back to the meetings, however, as a signatory of the World Health Organisation’s framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the EU is required to reveal all meetings with the tobacco industry.
The OLAF investigation established that Mr Dalli had at least two meetings with tobacco lobbyists. The first was back in August 2010, with Thomas Hammagren, at the time employed with British American Tobacco.
Mr Dalli has always acknowledged this meeting. He pointed out yesterday that he met him in Gozo while he was holidaying in a hotel there. To emphasise how casual the meeting was, he even pointed out during the hearing that he was in his swimming trunks.
The second meeting was with Swedish Match’s then Maltese lawyer Gayle Kimberley on January 6 2012. Mr Dalli yesterday acknowledged both meetings again at the hearing but emphasised that according to a report prepared by Mr Hammagren right after the meeting, it was clear that Mr Dalli had simply stated his public position in favour of public health.
As for the meeting with Dr Kimberley, he pointed out she had said in an e-mail following that meeting that she did not representing Swedish Match and that this was left out of the OLAF investigation.
He said this to make the point that he could not known that she was a tobacco lobbyist.
“This is an example of how the facts were manipulated to come to a pre-determined conclusion that I would have to go,” Mr Dalli said.
Mr Dalli is not alone in facing charges that he met tobacco lobbyists off the books. Only last month, the European Ombudsman opened a probe into allegations that other members of the Commission failed to disclose meetings with tobacco lobbyists. When pressed on these issues after the hearing yesterday, Mr Barroso underscored the particularly “bizarre” way in which Mr Dalli got involved in these meetings, through a political associate, who then ended up being accused of asking for a bribe.
He also highlighted Mr Dalli’s particular position as the man steering the biggest tobacco legislation reform for more than a decade. “It was unthinkable for him to continue as Commissioner. It was a matter of common sense that a prolonged investigation would cast a long shadow on the Commission. Especially as he was preparing to deal with such a complex legislation, the Tobacco Directive.”
Meanwhile just hours before the case was due to get under way, a report by OLAF’s supervisory committee was published questioning the legality of the investigation that led to John Dalli’s resignation.
The report, published by Corporate Europe Observatory, an influential transparency NGO, expresses serious concerns particularly about the way the agency obtained the mobile phone records of Maltese suspects in its Dalligate probe.