Euractiv.com: Commissioner apologises for Libya remarks
EURACTIV.COM
COMMISSIONER APOLOGISES FOR LIBYA REMARKS
Published: 07 March 2011 | Updated: 08 March 2011
John Dalli, EU commissioner for health and consumer protection, was forced to make a public apology after suggesting that Europe should refrain from “interfering” in the unfolding Libyan crisis, breaking ranks with the official line adopted by his own administration.
“I don’t think I or anyone else has the right to interfere with Colonel Gaddafi’s position,” said Dalli, a former foreign minister of Malta, according to reports published in the Maltese press on Friday (4 March).
“The media is treating this almost as a reality show and sometimes I doubt whether some of the images we see are stage-managed,” he said when asked about Libya during a breakfast meeting on EU competitiveness organised by the Malta Business Bureau.
Dalli’s statement came as an embarrassment for the European Commission ahead of a meeting of EU leaders this week that will consider backing the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya in an attempt to prevent a full-blown civil war in the North African country.
Two days previously, Dalli’s own boss, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, had made a vibrant appeal in support of the Libyan insurrection. “I want to specifically say this to the young Arabs that are now fighting for freedom and democracy: ‘We are on your side’,” Barroso said emphatically on Wednesday (2 March).
Commissioner Dalli’s apparent break from the Commission line was quickly linked to the business ties he has had with Libya in the past. According to a declaration of interests published on the Commission’s website, Dalli owns a house in Tripoli and was director of a glass manufacturing company in Libya.
“I regret if any of the remarks I made on Friday have conveyed the false impression that I do not support the position communicated by President Barroso on the situation in Libya on Wednesday 2 March,” Dalli said in a statement released on Sunday.
“Some of my remarks were interpreted out of context and considered to be in contradiction with the president’s statements. I am of course fully behind the position expressed by the president on behalf of the Commission.”
“The main point I was making regarding Mr Ghaddafi in my personal remarks, strongly condemning any violence, was that Mr Ghaddafi must follow the will of his people.”
Meanwhile, the EU has sent a technical fact-finding team to Libya in order to assess humanitarian needs on the ground ahead of Friday’s meeting of EU leaders. “Its aim will be to assess humanitarian and evacuation efforts on the ground in Libya to make an appraisal of what may be needed in terms of additional support,” EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.
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http://www.euractiv.com/en/global-europe/commissioner-apologises-libya-remarks-news-502774
John Dalli hasn’t yet caught on that the internet and new media have made the world a village. His regular trips to Malta to interfere with national politics and to maintain his power base have backfired seriously this time.
What he says in Malta may matter in Brussels. The international media don’t pick up on his appearances on Super One because they’re in Maltese, but when he speaks English as he did at that business breakfast, then he should remember that European journalists are listening.
I hope he learns the lesson.
I wonder what Harry Vassallo, former chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika, thinks about his boss John Dalli’s pronouncements on Gaddafi and the media-fixed scenes. He used to write newspaper columns pontificating against that sort of thing. Now what?
Serves him ruddy well right for taking up an offer which John Dalli made him only to irritate the prime minister and the perm rep in Brussels, and not because he really wanted him or because his work track record is excellent and perfect for the job. Now Dr Vassallo has the deal with the consequences of working for somebody who comes across as regretting that the Gaddafi regime collapsed because now John Dalli & Associates will have to start building networks of contacts afresh.
An apology from John Dalli is not enough. The man should do the decent thing and resign.
He hasn’t apologised Troy. He has sought to justify himself, which is different.
So now we have it from Mr Dalli himself…”some of my remarks were interpreted out of context………. I am of course fully behind the position expressed by the president…” So now what else do we want from him. Let us not make a mountain out of this molehill. Enough with all this attempt of character killing,
[Daphne – Silvio, what do you mean that you have it from Dalli himself that some of his remarks were interpreted out of context? Are you incapable of assessing the facts for yourself? What Dalli said is on the record: play the video. Listen to what he says. Then read the reports. And see that they were NOT taken out of context. What you will see is that his ‘statement of apology’ is actually a statement of self-justification, and that it contains at least one major lie that I could see: that bit about the fountain of democracy. Dalli is not even capable of coming up with a metaphor like that, and he certainly didn’t say anything about fountains of democracy at that business breakfast.]
I might agree with some of your points, but what I really intended to say was, isn’t it now time to stop all this? Lets for the sake of argument agree that this was in fact an apology, by Dalli, for what he said, or not said, what else do you expect from him? Come on say it.
[Daphne – Nobody expects anything from him, Silvio. It’s not as though the man has any grace or understands anything about correct behaviour. That’s what got him into this mess in the first place. But that doesn’t mean we should stop discussing the mess he made. It’s impossible to feel sympathetic towards somebody who has spent the last seven years on a crusade of self-pity and vengeance.]
Dear Mrs Caruana Galizia, I tend to agree with some parts of what you say, what I said reflects my desire to see Mr. Dalli back to where he belongs, that is back to the party where he still has a lot to conrtibute for the wellbeing of our country, what I detest is reading remarks like “the son of a passtissar” and similar remarks. What good can come out of such remarks, I don’t think Mr Dalli is after vengeance he just wants the truth to come out, wouldn’t you?
[Daphne – In his position, no, I wouldn’t.]
Come,come Mrs Daphne(Ihope you dont mind) I dont think that “no, I wouldn’t . goes well with your character, I have always admired your fighting spirit and am certain you would fight “to the last drop of blood” to prove your point.
[Daphne – I meant that no, in his position I would NOT want the truth to come out. Nor does he. What he wants is to create the impression of a different truth to blur the real one. But then I would never have been in his position in the first place, because I know not to say those things even if it is what I think, and I wouldn’t have thought them either.]
This is your real character, something very admirable. This is what Mr Dalli is doing and far from being after vengance. He feels he has been wronged and wants the people who “stabbed him in the back ” to get what they deserve.
[Daphne – You have me all wrong if you think I’m that way. Nothing could be further from the truth. You are describing the mentality of a Sicilian peasant, and I am not one.]
John Dalli, like Joe Sammut il-Pixtu tal-Labour, is driven by money and the need for approbation, and for the very same reasons. One grew up as the son of a village postman in 1950s Mosta and the other as the son of a village pastizzar in 1950s Qormi. How much they have, they will never have enough.