John Dalli resigns after investigation into snus corruption

[Jean]

Give it some time. The EU parliament seems intent to look into the matter, which in turns means that more aspects will go public.

[GN Tobacco Sweden AB]

Någon vill tipsa dig om den här artikeln i Aftonbladet:

Mutsumman som erbjöds för snuset: 600 miljoner
600 miljoner kronor. Det var summan snustillverkaren Swedish Match erbjöds betala i muta för att få EU att slopa snusförbudet. –*Jag kan bekräfta att det är de nivåerna vi pratar om, säger Patrik Hildingsson, vd för Swedish Match.


Klicka här om du vill läsa hela artikeln:
http://mobil.aftonbladet.se/a/www/15635317

Om det inte fungerar att klicka så kan du kopiera länken och klistra in i din webbläsare.

Tips: Har du Iphone kan du läsa artikeln direkt i Aftonbladets Supernytt-app som du kan ladda hem från Appstore. Läs mer här:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/mobil/article5967810.ab


Skickat från min iPhone

[pris]

Blimey oh riley, a 600 Million bribe :-O

[Ansel]

Anti-smoking campaigners accuse tobacco lobby after office break-in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...lobby-burglary

[Reynard]

All this publicity has to be good news for all of us, provides a window for some transparency as a counter to all the bs

[Skell18]

Blimey oh riley, a 600 Million bribe :-O

60 million euro wasn't it?

[pris]

Sorry Skell, re-reading GN's post he said 600 Million Swedish Kronor which is about 60 million Euro I think.

[Skell18]

Sorry Skell, re-reading GN's post he said 600 Million Swedish Kronor which is about 60 million Euro I think.

Was gonna say, £600 Million is a lot of wonga, you could buy a country for that! lol

[stubby2]

Was gonna say, £600 Million is a lot of wonga, you could buy a country for that! lol

You can buy most of the US senate with that.

[bill77.017]

Just seen this in the news this morning. John dalli is considering legal action. He's a neck like a jockeys bo**ox.

http://www.euronews.com/2012/10/24/o...-legal-action/

[Frosted]

This is worrying - it seems like the rest of them are a bunch of knob jockeys too. Why do they not see it.

http://www.europolitics.info/europol...344491-46.html

Interview with Anca Toma Friedlaender, senior policy advisor, Smoke Free Partnership

Delay caused by Dalli resignation prejudicial to public health

By Sophie Petitjean | Thursday 25 October 2012

The Smoke Free Partnership (SFP) is concerned that the resignation of John Dalli will further delay the review of Directive 2001/37/EC on tobacco products. The coalition had been relatively satisfied with the draft legislation as it was presented by the media (including pictorial warnings, restrictions on flavourings, upholding the ban on snus, etc). Therefore, according to Anca Toma Friedlaender, political advisor for the SFP, the main beneficiary of the Dalli snus scandal is the tobacco industry...
What do you think of the Dalli case?
It is very hard to comment: new information is coming every day. The directive was already delayed. When we launched our report on the tobacco industry’s tactics, this is something we warned the public about. But it is still delayed, still blocked, even if in a different way. And this is very alarming because delaying the process on the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) officially for two months does not mean that the directive will actually be adopted only two months after schedule: Parliament’s legislature ends in May-June 2014; after that, it will be a new Parliament, and so an entire new process will start to adopt the directive; on top of that, the Commission will also change, adding another few months to the procedure. If it was a year ago, as first expected, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered as much.
Do you understand why the interservices consultation hasn’t begun yet?
What we do see is a delay that, from an administrative perspective, is inexplicable. The European Parliament has consistently called on the Commission to speed up the process, the Presidency and the health community did the same - and it didn’t happen. But I couldn’t say if it is the result of some lobbying.
What we understand from various public declarations is there is a consultation going on within the services of the Commission and this takes time. Anyway, there is no reason to block it now, neither to reopen the file at this point.
Furthermore, Mr Barroso gave assurance that the process will restart once the new commissionner is officially designated. But in absence of a timetable, I must say that we are not really reassured.
Who would benefit from this scandal?
The only winner of this whole story is the tobacco industry as a whole, that is very clear. In no way can this delay benefit public health: every 48 seconds someone dies because of tobacco and every delay allows that to happen.
Your offices were broken into. Is there a link?
The timing is conspicuous and it has disrupted our work, of course. There was a break-in in our office and four laptops were stolen. There were confidential files related to the TPD, to our strategy and to our work in general. A police investigation is now under way.
How do you assess the draft legislative proposal on the TPD? Does it fulfill your main requests?
First of all, we haven’t seen the draft. Based on what we heard from the media and Dalli himself, it looks very promising. We understand that there will be large pictorial warnings, mandatory, on both sides of the pack, as well as a significant restriction on flavorings in tobacco products.
That is part of our priorities. We call for large mandatory pictorial warnings covering 80% of the front and the back of the packet, including quit lines as part of the warning, and for replacing the TNC (tar, nicotine and carbon monoxyde) measuring with a general warning of toxicity of tobacco products. And we support standardised plain packaging. Our second priority is on flavourings: we are calling for a ban on flavourings that increase the attractiveness of tobacco products. It was said in the media that a ban on characterising flavours was part of the draft and if it was, it would be really good. Our third priority is a ban on the display of tobacco products at points of sale and on that, there was no information in the media. We also want to maintain the ban on snus.
Why are you against the lifting of that ban, as snus is considered an alternative for smokers?
Snus has never been on the EU market, except in Sweden. So we don’t see the need for this ban to be lifted.
This is the result of many discussions amongst the health and the tobacco control communities based on evidence. The SFP, along with many other organisations, is convinved that there is no legitimate reason to introduce on the market potentially harmful products.
Aren’t you financed by the pharmaceutical industry, which develops patches and other medicine for smokers? Does it influence your position on snus?
The way we are funded is public and can be checked in our annual report. The vast majority of our income comes from our members. A tiny part comes from the pharmaceutical industry (around 2.5% of our total budget), but it doesn’t influence our choice.

[Skell18]

Aren’t you financed by the pharmaceutical industry, which develops patches and other medicine for smokers? Does it influence your position on snus?
The way we are funded is public and can be checked in our annual report. The vast majority of our income comes from our members. A tiny part comes from the pharmaceutical industry (around 2.5% of our total budget), but it doesn’t influence our choice.

Bollocks! That fact they are funded by the pharmaceutical industry means they are not impartial, even funding to the tune of 1 pence removes the impartiality. That response is typical of not wanting to admit they are influenced and are under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, scum!

[Mdisch]

Excuse my language, but that is a f*cking moronic statement by the Anti-Snus guys. "Potentionally harmful" my ass - Champix was legalized as a nicotine subsitute, and that made some pilots suicidal and caused heartattacks! Nicotinell is expensive as f*ck and doesn't seem to work - and in turn it is exactly as damaging as snus, if not more.

I'm tired of all these goddamn idiotic EU members - The EU were doing such a good job a few years back and they focused on removing pesticides to increase health - but this? This doesn't improve anybodies health, it just inconveniences us and ends up with us potentionally becoming smokers again!

Edit : I'm tipsy, and I am FURIOUS!

[bill77.017]

These people just refuse to see and accept the facts. You might as well be talking to the wall in explaining the health benefits of Snus to them. Arseholes!!!

[alexdal]

Anca Toma Friedlaender is a Nazist and should be arrested for life!

I dont' like nazist people: this people want to force to live as robot, as puppet: like the other mad people in history: stalin, the president of korea, castro, hitler, etc