Comment of the day
Posted by roughjustice:
The one thing that really gets my knickers in a twist is that people like Dalli rely on the innocence or naivety (not to use ignorance) of those few who genuinely and without ulterior motive believe that there is a shred of sincerity in Dalli’s claim to innocence of the facts.
And it is these same gullible suckers who are giving him the courage and leg-room to keep up this sham of incredulity and awe in the face of accusations which he himself must know to be true.
One must be a fool to think that he can outflank Barroso, Kessler and the entire European Commission (whilst making a mockery of us Maltese) but others are more foolish to give him the space and benefit of the doubt (where not a slither exists) to keep trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Of course, one cannot expect him to confess and climb into his hole, but in creating this circus (excuse the reference, Mr. Zammit) he is unnecessarily dragging Malta under a dark shadow which we surely do not deserve, especially not from Mr. Dalli who, in his Chaplinesque way, seems always to attract the rain clouds wherever he goes.
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Try reading into John Dalli’s strategy.
I say he gets the sixty million by creating the impression that the whole process, both before and after his removal, is vitiated.
Ok, so he may not be Clooney, but why put up this soap opera if not to gain time until the directive fails the relevant deadlines?
Once I read a comment in an Italian newspaper which said, about Andreotti:
“Whenever he falls he always lands on his feet”
That, to me , fits John Dalli perfectly.
Whatever his faults, we need people like him.
[Daphne – Actually, Silvio, people like you are responsible for the continued survival of people like Dalli, because you are part of the culture that refuses to draw a line beneath any form of bad behaviour, and admire those who ‘get away with it’.]
No, Daphne, I do not approve of bad behaviour, but I will not judge anyone before I’ve heard all of the facts.
Of course I have no doubt that Dalli should have been more cautious, but I still wait to see what are the interests of those who are accusing him.
[Daphne – Cautious about not getting caught, or cautious in choosing his friends, associates and meetings?]
After all they might have done even worse than what they are accusing him with.
Time will tell, this is just the beginning of the whole story.
In my opinion the simple fact that he agreed to resign before three of the highest officials of the Commission is an unequivocal admission of guilt.
All the crap that he pronounced subsequent to that act is utterly irrelevant to the point at issue.
It was nothing more than a pathetic attempt to whitewash his political armageddon.
Why not?
It happened already in March 1999 when the entire Jaques Santer European Commission resigned because of the ovewrpowering stench of corruption.
[Daphne – You’re wrong. They resigned together because Edith Cresson, who was under pressure to resign, refused to do so. Of course, she should have been fired, but to avoid that, they all resigned en masse.]
What happened to Edith Cresson can happen again to present members of the European Commission and therefore the autocratic Barroso-Kessler CAN be actually outflanked as happened in 1999. As of now Barroso-Kessler are not “refusing to resign but they are resisting the demand of EU parliamentarians to be transparent.
I fail to understand the reference to Dalli’s impossible task of “outflanking Barroso, Kessler and the entire European Commission”.
Are we supposed to kow-tow to the maxim “Might is right”?
Dalli is not alone. European Parliamentarians in the budgetary committee openly support the demand for more transparency and so does the prestigious medical journal The Lancet.
Mass resignation of an entire European Commission guilty of corruption is a recent event (1999)
Dalli isn’t clamouring for more transparency. He’s clamouring for an opportunity to bang his own drum louder and longer.
This is the man who forgot about a couple of meetings he’d had, with the Tobacco industry lobby, in his role as Commissioner.
You’re making the same mistake Dalli is making. Pinning blame on institutions and industry doesn’t automatically clear his name.
I did not say that Dalli was clamouring for transparency – Dalli “pro domo sua” would not carry much weight with me. But you should be able to understand that it is the independent European Parliamentarians of the budgetary committe that are demanding more transparency and disclosure.. And if you remove your anti-Dalli blinkers you would have to admit theirs would be unbiased very important and very relevant. To your way of “reasoning” those parliamentarians would also making “the same mistake Dalli is making”. Only OLAF is the infallible one.
Cresson in her capacity as the Research Commissioner “failed to act in response to known, serious and continuing irregularities over several years”.
Having passed through such a turmoil, the EU Commission under President Barroso had no other other choice but to take swift and direct action.
Not at all Snoopy! President Barroso had the clear choice, and the obligation, to follow up diligently fresh Swedish Match allegations that had not been “continuing irregularities over several years”. They were the recent, dubious self incriminating allegations, sourced by a party itself involved up to its neck in the bribery negotiations.
There was no need for indecent haste, peremtory judgment and a summary “execution” when OLAF itself admits that the evidence was only circumstantial, therefore ipso fact ambiguous and it did not prove anything against Malta’s commissioner.