“From Peppi’s to Barroso’s” – a ‘please kill me now’ interview with Silvio Tal-Mqaret in the EU Observer

Published: November 3, 2014 at 6:45pm

silvio zammit EU Observer

Read this AND DIE. The kiosk with kiddie animal ride, the small-time gambling licence, the part-time circus impresario, the not finishing secondary school, the trouble forming complex sentences in speech and writing.

Attakk personali fahhxi u sfrenat fuq Silvio Zammit mill-gazzetta ta’ Brussel, l-EU Observer.

God, what a lousy idea it was to send that knave to the EU Commission, when he has such an entourage of scoundrels and he is much worse than the lot of them put together.

I don’t know why this EU Observer journalist is so surprised that Silvo Zammit can’t form complex sentences when his boss the ex EU Commissioner can’t, either. And wait until they find out that John Dalli has a drug-smuggler and Naples Camorra contact for a brother, tracked by the police between Malta and Libya for years, and probably now as free of police investigation as his ex EU Commissioner brother is.

This interview was published today. Tomorrow, the EU Observer is publishing Part II of the eight-part series. They’ve called it MALTA’S MR TEFLON. Guess who’s going to be the star: the prime minister’s consultant, John Dalli, no doubt.

As for Silvio Zammit “and all his family” being with the Nationalist Party, give me a break – I’m from Sliema too, and Zammit is exactly my contemporary, so I can tell you for a fact that they support the Nationalist Party in exactly the same way that Labour PS for Planning and Development (another Sliema contemporary of mine) has always supported il-festa ta’ Stella Maris.

Silvio Zammit’s idea of politics was hanging round Michael Refalo, then Michael Frendo, then I believe George Pullicino, until finally he found his fellow spirit in John Dalli and fell comprehensively in love.

And they are both quintessentially Labour in spirit, thinking, money-grubbing, lack of respect for the rules and general outlook. Political philosophy? Policies? Wot det?




20 Comments Comment

  1. Reporter says:

    “Sliema’s soulless residential buildings.”

    How true.

    How sad.

    [Daphne – How very irrelevant.]

  2. canon says:

    One cannot deny the fact that Silvio really started from scratch and made it as a lobbyist in Brussels.

  3. curious says:

    ‘Zammit’s direct role in what later came to be called “Dalligate” began at a lunch in Stockholm in October 2011 with two lobbyists from Estoc – the European smokeless tobacco council, an umbrella organisation which represents makers of mouth tobacco, commonly known by its Swedish name “snus”.

    They also believed Zammit and Dalli were “friends’.

    We have always asked and are still asking why Silvio Zammit was in Stockholm in the first place. That is the crucial question which needs to be answered.

    U jhallina mis-sub judice.

    • anthony says:

      curious, you know nothing.

      Silvio Zammit was in Stockholm on that occasion because he had been invited by the Karolinska Institute to read a paper on Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology.

  4. chico says:

    Everyone seems to have forgotten about the Silvio and the pitrolju for the national swimming pool affair. And I think it was Frendo first and Refalo second.

  5. La Redoute says:

    It’s an 8-part series.

    http://euobserver.com/smoke-and-mirrors/126158

    “The events involve: EU officials turned tobacco lobbyists; newly-leaked emails and EU files; a $100 million charity in the Bahamas; and ongoing Maltese and EU court cases which could end in millions of euros of damages or years in jail.

    In a series of eight articles, EUobserver reporter Nikolaj Nielsen takes a closer look at events which, in the words of one MEP, are likely to haunt Brussels for the next 10 years to come.”

  6. king rat says:

    I feel like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland – hide-hide-hide-hide-hide-hide-hide-hide and weep .

  7. Kevin says:

    Interestingly, the notorious Gambino family boss, John Gotti, was nicknamed “the Teflon don” because he was acquitted in all three of his high profile trials during the 80s.

  8. observer says:

    I can assure you that quite a few civil service officials crossed swords with Silvio Zammit (at the time National Pool manager of sorts) during Michael Refalo’s tenure as Minister responsible for tourism, the reason being that he totally ignored the fairly strict procedures he was required to follow in carrying out his ‘duties’.

  9. White coat says:

    Silvio Zammit and people like him can easily go by the name: Opportunists. They are now all in Muscat’s skip; and it stinks.

    The PN is definitely in financial dire straits but at least I can say that we have one political party that, warts and all, has shaken itself of the scoundrels, thieves and pimps and I’d rather not see them being elected because of this fact rather than see the party attracting back the dirt for a few dirty votes.

  10. Arnold Layne says:

    He’ll only be Mr Teflon if the charges don’t stick. The OLAF investigation is far from over.

  11. bob-a-job says:

    ‘Out on €100,000 bail’

    Silvio Zammit was allowed bail on a deposit of €25,000. The remaining €75,000 are a personal guarantee.

    There is little new with the rest of the story although they make it out to be as ‘ facts not included in Olaf’s leaked report and new email evidence obtained by EU Observer’.

    It seems that investigative reporting world wide has gone down the gutter.

  12. C C says:

    You forgot the mention that the kiosk had its drainage system, for years, giving directly first to the sea, then to the rain water culvert . After being take to court by the health department, he did get connected to the drainage system.

  13. Orlando Ellul Micallef says:

    It’s very strange that Dalli flew across the world and back in 24 hours to move hundreds of millions of dollars for charity but did nothing here in Malta to help those Chinese factory slaves.

    What’s the prime minister’s views on this? Does he not have anything to say or is he too busy working on a new milestone schedule for the power station?

Leave a Comment