The Akbar Zib Award: John Dalli
Let's hope the girls have put sandbags round my house in Tripoli
Just back from watching Xarabank to find that John Dalli’s ‘that was ketchup not blood’ remarks have made Joshua Keating’s blog on the Foreign Policy magazine site (foreignpolicy.com).
I was thinking of giving Reno Calleja my Akbar Zib Award for his closing remark on the show that “ghalina, l-Maltin jigu l-ewwel u qabel kollox” but then thought about it some more, and concluded that John Dalli is more deserving.
It’s not exactly the Gaddafi Human Rights Award and it doesn’t come with $250,000 attached, but never mind. He’s got a home in Tripoli already.
Here he is.
FOREIGN POLICY
Maltese EU commissioner goes way off script on Libya
Posted By Joshua Keating Friday, March 4, 2011
In a post yesterday, I noted that Malta’s geographic proximity to Libya had given it a central role in the international response to the ongoing crisis — a somewhat awkward position for an EU member that nonetheless has long-standing political and commercial ties to its southern neighbor.
This was highlighted vividly today by comments made by EU Health Commissioner John Dalli, a former Maltese cabinet minister. Dalli didn’t quite voice support for Qaddafi, but certainly gave him the benefit of the doubt and came awfully close to suggesting that the demonstrations have been staged by outside forces.
(…)
Dalli’s comments are not all that surprising — he used to run a consulting firm which specialized in helping Maltese companies set up shop in Libya — but they differ sharply from the EU’s official line and won’t be welcomed by his boss, EU President José Manuel Barroso, or by EU foreign affairs representative Catherine Ashton. Then again, when coordinating a common foreign policy for 27 countries, not everyone is going to be on the same page.
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Not everyone is going to be on the same page. But at least you would expect them to be in the same book.
Dalli loves the ‘Green book’–Dollars.
Libyan dinars are green too.
One would hope that this time, at least, Dalli cannot blame someone else or his (former?) Party of pushing him over the cliff.
I suspect that we have not heard the last regarding his latest faux pas.
Johnny Cash – The Brussels Prison Blues
Maybe Dalli’s company in Libya specialises in crisis control and limitation.
Was it said before 1200hrs or after? It might be relevant.
Am I accurate in stating that you did not have any “differences” with John Dalli before 2004? Just asking.
[Daphne – No, you are not at all accurate. Quite the contrary.]
John Dalli has doubts at the reports coming out of Libya, and he thinks that some reports are fabricated (sort of like his brother’s story about the prison guard who tried to bribe him) by the media.
These sick allegations are made by an EU commissioner who might have been our prime minister had not the Nationalist councillors sussed him out.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/04/the-monitor-group-gadaffi-pr
And this is what John Dalli said back in 2004…
“In a rich country like Libya, people’s aspirations are growing. They want to live a normal life.”
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55590-2004May25.html
Now he wants Libyans to stay put and let Gaddafi and his family control their lives for many more years to come.
John Dalli on Libya in 2007:
“Mr Dalli added, “Malta had served as a gateway between Libya and the outside world during the days of international sanctions. Now that the sanctions have been lifted, it is a pity that, with the country on the verge of an economic explosion, that Malta no longer has the same relationship it once had with Libya.
It seems that we are now experiencing a detachment as though EU membership has alienated us from what is destined to become the ‘Dubai of the Mediterranean’.”
Source: http://libyanews.net/archive/libya_news_archive.php?Info=1255
Our Johnny gets a dishon mention in the ,last sentence :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/mar/04/cameron-relief-no-fly-zones?INTCMP=SRCH
“At least they will agree that John Dalli, Malta’s European commissioner, does not speak for the EU on Libya.”
He does not speak for Malta either.
Dalli is today an EU commissioner but, in the eyes of many Maltese he is still ‘a Nationalist ex-minister’ so the PN should issue a statement dissociating itself from him.
In fact, since he considers his EU commissioner’s job a “prison sentence”, maybe he should be paroled and released from prison without serving the full sentence.
John Dalli forfeited his chances of being paroled by getting into more trouble while serving his ‘sentence’. Let him serve the whole term.
The PN and PM disassociated themselves from John Dalli the moment he was appointed EU Commissioner.
It is John Dalli who will not let go and enjoy the prison generous allowances but still hopes that one day, in his old(er) age he may become leader of the NP and eventually PM.
Unfortunately for all of us, we cannot arrest the march of time and by the time Dalli’s sentence is over, he will be regarded as too old to bring in some fresh ideas. He will become a Nationalist version of a Labour Party Karmenu Vella.
John Dalli had a chance to retire as a respected politician. Instead he lost it quite some time ago and it is now nearly impossible for him to regain the respect he had earned many years ago.