• March 29, 2024

Decision still pending on OLAF boss

 Decision still pending on OLAF boss

The European Commission has refused to say why, after more than a year, it is still undecided about whether to allow Belgian prosecutors to question the EU’s top anti-fraud official over allegations that he broke the law, according to a story by Quentin Ariès and James Panichi for Politico.

Belgian authorities want immunity lifted from Giovanni Kessler, the head of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), so that they can investigate allegations that Kessler secretly listened in on a conversation between witnesses linked to Dalligate, which the writers describe as ‘the 2012 tobacco lobbying scandal’. Belgian law prohibits surreptitious monitoring or taping of phone calls.

The Dalligate investigation, which was carried out by OLAF, culminated in the forced resignation of the then-health commissioner John Dalli over concerns about his alleged unreported contact with tobacco lobbyists.

The ‘scandal’ was said to have highlighted the prominent role played by tobacco lobbyists in the Commission’s tobacco legislation reforms and prompted the institution to overhaul its transparency rules in December 2014.

The Commission, which informed Kessler of the Belgian prosecutors’ request to lift his immunity in May 2015, has refused to say why it has repeatedly postponed a decision. The delay has left Kessler’s political future at the mercy of the Commission – even though OLAF, which investigates corruption and fraud in the EU, was designed to be insulated from political pressure.

The full story is at: http://www.politico.eu/article/eu-anti-fraud-chief-ensnared-in-brussels-legal-political-limbo-giovanni-kessler-john-dalligate/.