EC president sticks to decision on Dalli

European Commission president José Manuel Barroso has stood by his decision to ask former Commissioner John Dalli to step down, despite the “media speculation” over the EU anti-fraud probe that led to his resignation. A spokesman for Mr Barroso shrugged off suggestions by Green MEPs that he would have acted differently had the commissioner involved in the investigation been German or French. “The nationality of the former commissioner played no role whatsoever in Mr Dalli’s resignation, which was based on the conclusions of the OLAF (anti-fraud agency) report,” the spokesman told Times of Malta. Earlier this month, two Green MEPs, José Bové and Bart Staes gave a press conference in Malta urging Mr Barroso to explain why he had failed to ensure the investigation on Mr Dalli stood up to scrutiny before he forced him to resign. They released a confidential report by the committee that oversees OLAF raising questions about the methods used in the investigation into Mr Dalli. The report expressed “serious concern” over OLAF’s alleged instructions to a tobacco lobbyist to record a conversation she had with a protagonist in the €60 million case, Mr Dalli’s former canvasser Silvio...