Malta's former EU Commissioner John Dalli this morning accused the European Commission of applying two weights and two measures.

Referring to the news that EU Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht was to be charged in the Belgian Court for tax evasion, Mr Dalli said this exposed the hypocrisy of the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the EU Commission executive.

He referred to the Commission's explanation that it could not prejudge the outcome and the presumption of innocence had be respected.
But in his case, Mr Dalli said, the presumption of innocence was not respected at all by the Commission and by OLAF. He was denied access to the report on which the decision to terminate was based and also denying the time to seek legal advise. The presumption of innocence was blatantly infringed by OLAF’s press conference the day after his termination, he said, adding that it later came out that this press conference was pre-advised by OLAF to Swedish Match even before the meeting between Mr Barroso and himself.

"The differences between the de Gucht case and my case are very obvious:

"The tobacco industry was not involved in the de Gucht case.

"The Belgian Government did not see the termination of de Gucht as an opportunity," Mr Dalli said.