Why is the European Union’s (EU’s) revised Tobacco Products Directive so close to stalling – people are beginning to ask. Some even wonder whose interest the EU Commission is promoting, authors in a Comment in The Lancet wrote today.
The Tobacco Directive, which everybody expected would greatly restrict how tobacco companies could promote cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, including the prohibition of electronic cigarettes, seems to be on a never-ending road of permanent delays.
The authors wrote:
“Further delay will raise serious questions about whose interest the EU Commission is promoting.”
A Lancet News Podcast special report discusses these issues. It also includes an interview with John Dalli, the former EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy who resigned recently.
Dalli’s resignation was described by the media as “controversial”. There were allegations of financial impropriety involving cigarette companies. The Tobacco Directive was subsequently put on hold, even though the text has been cleared, both legally and administratively, to move onto the next stage of implementation.
A “sophisticated robbery” occurred at the offices of anti-tobacco campaigners in Brussels within two days of Mr Dalli’s resignation. While laptops and several documents were stolen, numerous valuable goods remained untouched.
Co-author of the Comment, Professor Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said these set of events “set alarm bells ringing”.
Professor McKee said:
“While the truth about these events will emerge eventually, it may be too late for the revised Tobacco Products Directive. Yet there is no reason why this should be so. The only beneficiaries of delay are the tobacco companies.”
Co-author Paul Belcher, Senior EU Government Affairs Advisor at the Royal College of Physicians in London, said “The current situation is undermining both citizens’ confidence in EU decision making as well as public health efforts to combat the scourge of tobacco.”
In the Lancet Podcast interview, former Commissioner talked about the circumstances of his resignation:
“I was called to a meeting for which I had no agenda, then I was confronted immediately…’listen, we have this report, [containing] these allegations, and you have to go. You can resign, or I can fire you.’… I resisted the question of resignation. I said, first of all, I don’t know exactly what the basis of this message is. Secondly, I did not do anything wrong…I asked for some time to consult lawyers…I asked for 24 hours, also to inform my family, and I was given thirty minutes.”
Mr Dalli was asked what safeguards were in place to prevent the Directive from weakening now that its progress had ground to a halt, he answered “The safeguard was me.”
Co-author of the Comment, Monika Kosinska, Secretary General of the European Public Health Alliance, whose offices were targeted during the sophisticated burglary, described the delays of the revised Tobacco Products Directive as “paralysing”.
Kosinska speculated that:
“There’s no reason to immediately think that everyone in the commission is going to be behind the Tobacco Products Directive.”
The Smoke Free Partnership says that there is only one winner in this sad story, and that is the tobacco industry as a whole. It added that in no way can this delay benefit public health when somebody dies because of tobacco every 48 seconds.
While Mr Dalli, from Matla, says he was forced to resign from his post by Jose Manual Barroso, the Commission’s President, after OLAF (the European Anti-Fraud Office) had completed its investigation into Dalli’s alleged links to a Maltese businessman accused of trying to buy influence.
A Swedish maker of snus, an oral tobacco product which the EU had banned everywhere except in Sweden, had made the complaint. OLAF said that a businessman had asked for a large sum of money from the Swedish company if it could arrange for a meeting with Mr Dalli, the intention being that Dalli would lift the ban on snus in the whole of Europe.
Mr Dalli said no payments had been sought. In a news conference last Wednseday, Dalli said “My intention is to challenge the decision of the President], to challenge the decisions of OLAF, and the way that OLAF has gone through the whole procedure.”
Mr Barroso insists that Mr Dalli resigned voluntarily. He says Dalli had earlier on during that Wednesday written to him, saying “During our meeting on 16 October 2012 you have yourself unambiguously declared your immediate resignation, before the director general of the legal service and the head of my private office.”
Barroso described Dalli’s complaints and accusations as “incomprehensible”.
According to OLAF, Dalli and the businessman in question, Silvio Zammit, knew each other without a doubt. They both belong to the Partit Nazzjonalista, a Maltese political party.
OLAF has not accused Dalli of being directly involved in the operation to request money. However, it says there is compelling evidence to suggest that “that Commissioner Dalli was aware of the activities of the Maltese entrepreneur and of the fact that this person was using the commissioner’s name and position to gain financial advantages”.
OLAF has handed its files on this matter over to the Maltese police.
Written by Christian Nordqvist