EU Commissioner Dalli, wearing swimming-trunks and accompanied by Silvio Tal-Mqaret, met the man from Philip Morris while officially on holiday at a Gozo hotel
From John Dalli’s testimony today, quoted by Times of Malta:
“When I did see the details of this report, I realised there were two meetings. The first one with Thomas Hammagren from Phillip Morris. It is true that I met him and there was Silvio Zammit. I met him at a hotel in Gozo where I was holidaying. I went to meet him in my swimming trunks because I was on holiday”.
All together now: TOTALLY UNFIT FOR PURPOSE. More to the point – a very real risk and liability. Lawrence Gonzi, who I admire in so many ways, was utterly, utterly wrong to shove the monkey off his back and into the international arena.
That was a short-termist measure and an egocentric one. John Dalli went from being a problem for Lawrence Gonzi and the Nationalist Party in government to a massive problem for Malta in general and for the European Commission, with international headlines that won’t let up (largely because of Dalli’s pathological personality traits) and a specially coined term: Dalligate.
And it was bound to happen. Anybody who knew Dalli’s personality problems, money-hunger, sleaziness and inability to understand the boundaries of proper conduct – and if I knew all this at several removes then PM Gonzi certainly knew it close up – could have predicted the inevitable.
The decision to put Dalli forward as EU Commissioner was hugely irresponsible. Now Joseph Muscat is going to repeat the error with Karmenu ‘Il-Guy’ Vella: getting that monkey off his back by shoving it onto the European Commission.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140707/local/live-dalli-and-barroso-face-off-in-luxembourg.526164
To my mind a distinction should be made between making the mistake of shoving Dalli into the international arena and being compelled to do so.
[Daphne – Lawrence Gonzi was not compelled to nominate John Dalli as EU Commissioner. He chose to do so in an attempt at getting rid of him. But in reality, it could be foreseen that this would only make the problem worse and somebody with Dalli’s temperament would neither let go nor quit the scene in Malta, but would instead meddle and dissemble from a far more influential position because he has no standards or scruples. An EU Commissioner flying back to Malta every few weeks to rant and rave against the government and prime minister of Malta on the Opposition TV station? It was naive or wishful thinking to imagine that this would be beyond even him. But that’s exactly what he did: plot and scheme and wreak vengeance and collaborate with the Labour Party and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and the rest of the scum from his seat in the European Commission, which is why Muscat was the very first person he rang the second he stepped outside Barroso’s office after being fired. Gonzi’s difficulty is that he never understood that people like Dalli, Franco Debono and Pullicino Orlando, who have pathological personality problems, are constitutionally incapable of behaving normally and beyond that, do not respect those who behave normally towards them and who try to appease them. They literally despise those who try to appease them for their weakness, and then proceed to behave with even greater contempt towards them. The only language they understand is their own, and the only behaviour they respect is the slammed door – preferably slammed on their fingers and breaking their nose in the process (metaphorically speaking, I hate the tedium of having to specify this, but too many people don’t understand metaphors).]
‘Gonzi’s difficulty is that he never understood that people like Dalli, Franco Debono and Pullicino Orlando…’
In my opinion he never understood people at all only pigeonholing them according to their spiritual beliefs, denying to himself that some good men may have never been to church whereas thieves may have gone to daily Holy Communion.
Perhaps his gravest mistake was to use himself as a bench mark when judging others and his second gravest mistake was to plod on stubbornly in this notion even when common sense and others told him otherwise.
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/live-blog-barrosos-testimony-in-dalli-case/
In my opinion Eddie Fenech Adami made three mistakes but I hasten to add that the man more than made up for them with all the good he did.
1) Insisting that Dalli could do no wrong when it was obvious that the rot started almost right from the start but at least Dalli always remained loyal to Fenech Adami as far as I know.
2) The second mistake was backing Lawrence Gonzi for party leadership but then again there was little choice at the time.
3) Accepting to become President.
The live report on timesofmalta.com just goes to show how amateurish Dalli is in even entertaining the idea of a case like this. They tore him to shreds: Barroso, the judges, lawyers, everyone.
Barroso was excellent about the difference between legal presumption of innocence and the political responsibility for secret meetings with the tobacco lobby organised by a bar owner for a European Commissioner thousands of miles away and without other aides from the Commission.
Barroso didn’t mention the swimming trunks, but he wraps it all up neatly:
” I could not understand how he could have these bizarre meetings thousands of miles away from the commission. Without any officials being present. And these meetings being organised by a bar or restaurant owner.”
Barroso again: “He confirmed that this person from bar services was brokering meetings about the Tobacco Products Directive.”
What restaurant owner? That is a gabbana tal-imqaret.
‘No matter what I said was relevant. This was a situation similar to that of 2004 when the Prime Minister you referred to earlier (Lawrence Gonzi) sacked me on the basis of a report whose author (Joe Zahra) was sent to prison.’
This is completely untrue and could amount to perjury.
John Dalli became foreign Minister and was forced to resign after he instructed other ministers to buy air tickets from a travel agency in which his daughter had an interest. (Eddie, my journey page 323)
‘Some context: Joe Zahra was jailed in 2005 for fabricating a report which alleged that Mr Dalli had taken kickbacks in relation with Mater Dei tenders. It was all fabricated.’
The least I expect from reporter Mark Micallef of the Times is to get his facts right.
Still, Dalli was hoist by his own petard.
Barroso: “We are not talking about a junior. Let’s not forget, he had experience of this sort of situation by his own admission. It was the first time for me.”
That’s true.
It’s not really Dalli that bothers me. One can’t expect the man to hang himself.
It’s the amateurish reporting and journalists who do not even bother to research into a story that I cannot handle.
Sometimes I think they are there simply for a salary when it ought to be a vocation.
How right Barroso is when he says that he expected Dalli to resign to clear his name as is the usual political code of honour.
And yet Dalli’s immediate retraction of his resignation and flight into a court room to attack that resignation on legal argument has to come from his realisation that this time he could not explain his actions.
An honest man would not have attacked the integrity of others without first accounting for his own.
Let’s put those swimming trunks in context, shall we?
This is Thomas hmaargren. http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=79687188&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=TG-p&locale=en_US&srchid=310628331404743660262&srchindex=2&srchtotal=4&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A310628331404743660262%2CVSRPtargetId%3A79687188%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary&_mSplash=1
Can you picture him meeting John Dalli in his trunks? One hopes Dalli wasn’t also slathered in baby oil and tucking into hobz biz-zejt, accompanied by his matryoshka collection of shabby, dumpy and uncouth wife and daughters.
So on October 16 he admits to Barroso that he should not have used Silvio Zammit as a broker for meetings on the Tobacco Directive, and then for the eyes of the rest of the world he briefs his lawyers to write to Silvio Zammit holding him responsible for his uncalled-for meddling in these matters.
Is Barroso aware that John Dalli saw his position as EU Commissioner as one of ‘prisoner in Brussels’?
‘Romero Requena: I did not take a note of this because I was acting under normal circumstances. Dalli accepted to resign but I did not feel the need to take a verbatim account of this.’
Is this not an affirmation that Dalli is NOT normal or at least does NOT act in a normal way?
‘Some context: The report was in fact not sent to the Supervisory Committee. This led to serious criticism after the Olaf report became public, particularly because the committee raised serious concerns about the legality of parts of the Olaf investigation.’ – Mark Micallef
Here we go again. Mark Micallef stupidly writing the opposite of what Romero Requena has just said when asked if the Olaf report was scrutinised by the supervisory committee.
Romero states.’Of course not. The relationship between olaf and the supervisory committee is bilateral and they are independent institutions.’
Mark, independent institutions abroad are exactly that, INDEPENDENT.
This is not Malta where Political Parties and Government have no boundaries, where the Police Force or the Army can hardly be called independent and where journalists suck up to power or follow their personal agendas.
A quote from Zammit Silvio’s face book.
https://www.facebook.com/zammits
Just scroll down a little bit.
‘A simple hello could lead to a million things’
60 million perhaps?
Goodness how appropriate.