Strasbourg, 15/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The group presidents at the European Parliament have followed Joseph Daul (EPP, France) in calling for the “truth to be established” in the Dalli affair. In the opinion of the leader of the S&D Group, Hannes Swoboda (Austria), Parliament should set up a special committee to assess the influence of the tobacco industry - how it acts and weighs on the activity of the European Commission and European officials. Swoboda is echoing José Bové (Greens/EFA, France) and Bart Staes (Greens/EFA, Belgium) who proposed, on 9 January, the creation of a special parliamentary committee to investigate the Dalli affair and the role of lobby groups.
The EPP is more reserved about this special committee. “We will hear (José Manuel) Barroso and (the director general of OLAF, Giovanni) Kessler in the conference of the presidents. We are open to everything but not to the investigation being buried. The file will be studied and read until the end of the year, right to the end, and if there is reluctance from the European Commission, from the tobacco companies or OLAF, then a committee will need to be set up, but if there is a response, the budgetary control committee can continue its mission”, Daul said, adding that he wants the responses “as quickly as possible”.
The former European commissioner for health, John Dalli, was pushed to resign in October after allegations of corruption linked to the tobacco industry. (CG/transl.fl)