John Dalli discloses details of meetings Zammit set up

John Dalli has told MaltaToday that the former Sliema deputy mayor Silvio Zammit was involved in setting up two meetings, one for a lobbyist representing the European Smokeless Tobacco Council in August 2010, and another for a Maltese lawyer on the 6 January 2012, dealing with the subject of snus, the Swedish tobacco that is banned from being sold in the rest of the EU.

The former commissioner was responding to a declaration by Giovanni Kessler, the director of the EU's anti-fraud watchdog OLAF, who said Zammit was behind two particular meetings which appear to have provided the "circumstantial evidence" of a lobbyist using his contact with John Dalli to extract financial benefit from snus producers Swedish Match.

"I have repeatedly stated to OLAF that I did not discuss snus with the Maltese entrepreneur after the 6 January," Dalli said.

According to Dalli, in August 2010 Zammit first introduced an ESTOC representative to present the Commissioner with some PricewaterhouseCoopers reports on the tobacco industry, while the January 2012 meeting was with a Maltese lawyer who wanted to know about the EC's position on snus.

"During that time I was in listening mode on this issue, analysing all information and preparing my position," Dalli said, who was planning a review of the Tobacco Products Directive to make tobacco packaging less attractive to minors among other things.

Dalli said Kessler's claims that the two meetings were a case of trading in influence was on his part a matter of "conjecture".

"This is simply conjecture on his part which will not stand the test of serious study. I have categorically declared several times that I was not aware of these goings-on."

Dalli also said that ESTOC lobbyists, whom he met officially on 7 March 2012 as part of a public stakeholders meeting on the tobacco law review, had attempted to set up an informal meeting with him on the 3 July, in a telephonic request, after they had already informed the European Commission sometime in March 2012 of the graft complaint implicating Zammit and the commissioner.

"It is obvious that they did not succeed to get at me after many attempts...  the proof that these meetings did not influence my decisions is the email sent by ESTOC dated 16 March 2012, stating they were hearing disturbing rumours and were offering a bribe to have a meeting organised with me. This offer was never communicated to me," Dalli said.

ESTOC meets Dalli

Official minutes from the European Commission's health and consumers directorate-general for the 7 March 2012 show Dalli organised a stakeholders' meeting for the European tobacco industry on his upcoming review of Tobacco Products Directive, which also discussed the EU's ban on Swedish snus with Inge Delfosse, the secretary-general of the European Smoking Tobacco Council (ESTOC).

The meeting happened just a week before Delfosse emailed Silvio Zammit on 16 March, asking him how much cash he would charge to set up an informal meeting with John Dalli.

The minutes shed some light on the timing of a complaint to the EC by snuff tobacco producers Swedish Match, which led to the start of an investigation by the EU anti-fraud watchdog OLAF in May 2012.

OLAF director Giovanni Kessler today said that while his investigation had no conclusive evidence of Dalli's direct participation in an attempt to influence EU tobacco legislation, "a number of unambiguous circumstantial pieces of evidence" confirmed that Maltese businessman and now former Sliema deputy mayor Silvio Zammit, was namedropping Dalli with Swedish Match, and that Dalli should have been aware of this and denounced it.

Kessler said Zammit, a sometime Sliema canvasser for the former minister, had brokered two meetings and that he later demanded a "rather substantial sum" from ESTOC - ostensibly in a bid to influence Dalli's upcoming review of tobacco laws.

In the 7 March meeting, Dalli listened to members from 11 tobacco giants and lobbies such as Philip Morris, British American, and the European Smoking Tobacco Association, and how their interests would be affected by stricter tobacco laws.

According to the meeting's minutes, ESTOC secretary-general Inge Delfosse told Dalli that snus, a tobacco substance that is placed under the lip and can be chewed, was "approximately 90% less harmful than cigarettes" and that snus - which can only be sold in Sweden under an exemption - should be allowed to be sold in the rest of the EU under the principle of free trade.

Earlier on, on 29 February, Dalli met anti-tobacco and health NGOs to discuss his review of the tobacco directive.

What is unclear at this point is what prompted Swedish Match's complaint to the EC.

Vice-president Patrik Hildingsson, who spoke to MaltaToday on Tuesday evening, said Zammit offered them an "indecent proposal which was credible and real enough" to merit the EC complaint. At the same time, ESTOC - whose chairman is Hildingsson - was in familiar and close contact with Zammit, through secretary-general Inge Delfosse.