LONDON, UK — Corruption
allegations, unexplained break-ins, dark conspiracy theories and Swedish
snuff: Those aren’t the elements of a Hollywood film, but developments
in a plot surrounding Europe’s efforts to get tough on nicotine.
At stake are billions of
dollars of potential tobacco trade and the career of one of the European
Union’s senior figures. Also on the line is a long-awaited piece of
legislation health campaigners hope will score a major victory in a long
battle to cut cigarette consumption.
Given the cloud of
disapproval that has enveloped big tobacco at least since the days US
manufacturers denied their products were addictive, the scandal has
predictably generated allegations the industry is resorting to
underhanded tactics to protect its steadily shrinking market.
The controversy erupted
earlier this year when Swedish Match, which produces a snuff-based
chewing tobacco popular in parts of Scandinavia, claimed it had been
propositioned by a lobbyist with connections to John Dalli, a veteran
Maltese politician serving as the EU’s health commissioner.
The manufacturer said
businessman Silvio Zammit, also from Malta, had suggested he could
persuade Dalli to alter forthcoming legislation on tobacco products by
lifting an EU export and marketing ban on its snus chewing tobacco — for
a consideration of $78 million.
Swedish Match said it refused the offer and called in OLAF, the EU’s fraud investigators. OLAF found “unambiguous circumstantial pieces of evidence” indicating Dalli was aware of — but not involved in — Zammit’s activities and referred the matter to the Maltese authorities.
Dalli denies the accusation. “There is no evidence that I was in any way involved in this issue,” he told the Times of Malta. “I have consistently stated that I was unaware of communication passing between Silvio Zammit and the snus people.”
Nevertheless, Dalli left
office last week insisting OLAF and European Commission President Jose
Manuel Barroso forced him out against EU protocols.
“This is a very serious
decision that Mr. Barroso took, very serious,” he told a news conference
on Wednesday. “It will damage my whole future and it will damage the
future of my family.”
Barroso denies the charge
and says Dalli resigned voluntarily. Earlier in the day, he wrote to him
saying that "you have yourself unambiguously declared your immediate
resignation, before the director general of the legal service and the
head of my private office,” the BBC reported. He called Dalli’s
accusation “incomprehensible.”
The scandal has put the tobacco legislation’s future in doubt. Under Dalli, it had been beefed up with proposals to strip cigarette packages of almost all branding and tighten regulations on smokeless products such as electronic cigarettes and snuff.
Those measures — similar to a groundbreaking new Australian law
that from December will require cigarettes to be sold in plain packs —
have drawn condemnation from the tobacco industry. Retail lobbyists say
they could cause a $26 billion loss in European tax revenues.
Dalli has hinted at dark forces at play.
Since his departure, he’s
expressed concerns his legislation will be “diluted” or swept away,
saying he’d been subjected to “an attempt to dissuade me from going
ahead with certain measures” even before allegations had been lodged
against him.
Others share his worries.
"This was going to be the mainstay of tobacco policy for the European
Union over the coming years and the danger now is that it is dead in the
water," said Anna Gilmore, professor of public health at the UK’s
University of Bath.
Dalli has written to EU
lawmakers claiming that Swedish Match had tried to set up meetings with
him through middlemen in July, according to the EUObserver.com website. He said “it had passed my mind” that the tobacco industry had conspired in his demise.
Swedish Match has denied all
claims of impropriety and highlighted its own prompt involvement with
OLAF. The tobacco firm, which stands to gain a $2.3 billion market if
snus restrictions are lifted, says it wants the new laws introduced via a
“transparent and legally fair process.”
But Dalli, a reformed
smoker, isn’t alone in his pessimistic outlook or his view that sinister
hands may be at work, particularly given an unusual series of events
that took place in the days following the scandal’s development.
First there were the
burglaries. Last week, two days after Dalli left his job, the premises
of three anti-smoking groups — the European Public Health Alliance, the
European Respiratory Society and the Smoke Free Partnership — in a
building in Brussels were broken into.
Laptops and information
relating to their campaign work are understood to have been taken. But
although the organizations viewed the raids as the work of determined
professionals, none of them blamed tobacco companies.
“We do not subscribe to
conspiracy theories,” said a spokesman for the European Public Health
Alliance. “However, in light of the evidence we feel we have legitimate
reason to suspect the intrusion was well-planned, researched and
targeted.”
As the plot continues to thicken, there have been claims tobacco lobbyists are trying to steer journalists covering the story. Meanwhile, the electronic cigarette industry has wasted no time posting a scurrilous blog about alleged skeletons in Dalli’s closet.
It coincided with an equally timely publication of an essay by Steve Stotesbury,
a scientist working for Imperial Tobacco, outlining positive health
effects of snus use. He claims countries exempt from the current EU ban
show lower rates of smoking-related disease.
Other conspiracy theories
point elsewhere, including to OLAF chief Giovanni Kessler, who some
believe lacks the impartiality required for investigating Dalli because
he’s previously testified plain cigarette packaging could aid
counterfeiting.
Whether or not the smoke
surrounding what happened before and after Dalli’s exit clears, it’s
certain the EU tobacco legislation, if it ever emerges, could reshape
the continent’s nicotine habits.
Smoking across EU countries
is already in retreat: Adult consumers fell from 28.15 percent of the
population to 25.57 percent between 2002 and 2009, according to the
World Health Organization. But experts say new impetus is needed because
the rate of decline is slowing.
"Evidence suggests that the
anticipated legislation would have an impact,” said Gilmore, the public
health professor. Without it, she said, the tobacco industry will adapt
to existing restrictions such as taxes, marketing and workplace smoking
bans, and recruit new customers.
“Right now it is
increasingly relying on the cigarette pack to promote its products and,
in particular, to recruit young new smokers,” she added. “Policies that
reduce the marketing potential of the pack through plain packaging or
large warning labels are therefore very important."
LINKS:
1. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/121025/eu-dalli-barroso-tobacco-europe-smoking
2 http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1851/eu_health_commissioner_john_dalli_resigns_in_disgrace
