Dalli’s entertaining tobacco lobbyists by the pool in Gozo and at Peppi’s Kiosk, in meetings brokered by a Silvio tal-Mqaret, must have been the last straw for the European Commission
Some people have forgotten just how long Dalli has been testing the European Commission’s patience with his totally unacceptable behaviour.
Before he became an EU Commissioner, he was paid by Sargas as its consultant (this by his own admission). While he was an EU Commissioner, he tried to get the Maltese government to buy a Sargas power station, on which he would no doubt have taken a cut, which would be why he pushed it so hard and risked his position at the European Commission.
When the Maltese government slammed that particular door in his face, he tried selling his Sargas power station to the Opposition and helped them get elected to power so that they would be in a position to buy it. They didn’t. While still in Opposition, they struck a deal on another power station. But Dalli shut up about Sargas and still carried on helping Labour which means he got something else instead, something much better.
And then there was this hideously messy business when EU Commissioner Dalli spoke in public in Malta, just a few weeks into the Libyan uprising against Gaddafi, to pooh-pooh the rebellion, dismiss the dead as fakes for the camera, question the use of English in protest placards, and suggest that he hopes Gaddafi survives and everything gets back to ‘normal’ under his dictatorship.
Here is the report Agence France Presse (AFP) released on 6 March 2011.
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MALTESE EU COMMISSIONER DEFENDS PRO-KADHAFI SPEECH
BRUSSELS, Mar 05, 2011 (AFP) – Maltese European Commissioner John Dalli on Saturday defended remarks backing Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi that broke ranks with EU diplomatic leaders who want the veteran colonel out.
Dalli, who has enjoyed close commercial ties with Tripoli for a quarter of a century, told a Maltese business forum on Friday that he “didn’t think (he) had the right, or anyone else, to make a statement on whether (Kadhafi) should step down.”
“I think Kadhafi should make his own decisions. He has the assessment of the people, as he has said on TV,” Dalli added. “I think Kadhafi has made the first attempt towards conciliation.”
The 62-year-old commissioner also backed Kadhafi’s suggestion that outside forces had manipulated media coverage of protests over the past fortnight, leading to the present situation of near-civil war.
“Sometimes doubt creeps into one’s head when seeing people speaking perfect English and hoisted up by a group of people made to look like a crowd. I wonder if they might be shots ‘created’ for journalists,” Dalli was quoted as saying by Maltese media.
Dalli’s boss, EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, this week said it was time for Kadhafi “to go and give the country back to the people of Libya,” with the EU’s foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton also demanding that Kadhafi “stand aside.”
Spokesman Frederic Vincent told AFP he had been in contact with Dalli on Saturday, and argued that “personal commentaries” on a country he knows well, “that’s no secret,” should not be confused with his core beliefs.
“He said a solution that respects human rights had to be found,” Vincent insisted.
“That is totally in line with the democratic values that guide the commission.
“And in making some additional personal commentaries — to a Maltese business audience, close neighbours remember — he was only doing what millions of people around the world are doing.”
Of protest images being staged to suit an anti-Kadhafi agenda, Vincent stressed: “I have spoken to the commissioner, and he was talking about images on both sides, pro-regime demonstrations as well.”
Consultancy firm John Dalli & Associates was set up in 2004, with offices in Tripoli. Online autobiographical notes say it focuses on “introducing and facilitating the establishment of Western companies in the north African economies, especially Libya.”
Dalli, who owns a home in Tripoli, worked for a Libyan-Maltese Joint Commission from 1987 to 1996 and 1998 to 2004 — periods when Libya was under UN sanctions.
For political reasons, the consultancy business is now run by his family.
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Dalli made those comments about Libya when the EC’s publicly stated position was that Gaddafi had to go. Dalli was Commisioner at the time.
And after that he had to eat his words because ‘Some of my remarks were interpreted out of context’ Dalli said.
“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. He continued, “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 Gaddafi in my personal remarks, strongly condemning any violence, was that Mr Gaddafi must follow the will of his people.”
http://www.neurope.eu/article/dalli-repents-pro-gaddafi-remarks
Again, repeat: ” Dalli, who owns a home in Tripoli, worked for a Libyan-Maltese Joint Commission from 1987 to 1996 and 1998 to 2004 — periods when Libya was under UN sanctions.”
It was not the last straw. He burnt the haystack when he was given the chance to answer about the investigation and didn’t bother in six months.
He sealed his fate in the EU the moment he publicly expressed his doubts.
Further to your other post on “wages,” I think that in Dalli’s case the word “income” is more relevant.
I doubt that being Commissioner was his principal activity.
Maybe John Dalli could enlighten us as to what happened in 1989 when Libya was under UN sanctions.