In spite of the fact that the European Commission is trying to downgrade and “sweep under the carpet” the case of former Health Commissioner John Dalli, the European Parliament has a different approach to the matter and is gradually becoming more aggressive. Politically, the European Parliament is directly elected body, and is thus is the supreme political institution of Europe and is legitimized to ask questions.

Indeed for the Dalli case, the European Parliament has sent to the Commission 154 written questions for reply (made available to you exclusively from New Europe below).

So far, President Jose Barroso, solely responsible for the removal of Commissioner John Dalli, has not given any explanation.

During the EPP Congress in Bucharest of 17 October, immediately after the removal of the Commissioner on 16 October, he refused to give explanations on the matter to the party beyond saying that “the case is closed.” At the College of 24 October, when fellow Commissioners asked the President for an explanation, he laconically said, "trust me" and when he was invited by the Presidents of Parliamentary groups to give an explanation, he was questioned for one and a half hours but the Parliamentarians were not satisfied and sent to the Commission 154 written questions, as the answers of the President were not satisfactory.

We do not enter here into the legal aspects of the issue. Our duty is simply to observe and report while the questions, even without the answers, are quite enlightening.

We observe that the great majority of the questions come from the EPP Group (under MEP Joseph Daul). We note that the EPP party (Rue de Commerce, under the recently reelected Wilfried Martens), has systematically avoided inviting EPP former Commissioner John Dalli, alone or together with President Jose Barroso, to inform the Party on the facts.

The EPP Party is well aware from uncontested press reports and the press releases of the Commission, that Dalli was removed without any accusations formulated and in violation of the Commission’s procedures.

This seemingly was done in order to help the current EPP Prime Minister of Malta, Lawrence Gonzi (yet seemingly in vain) to win the upcoming Maltese election, likely to be called in three months time.

The issue for EPP, however, is that with this direct evidence of democratic deficit the EPP is creating and broadcasting, it may become very hard for them to still be leading the European Parliament after the next European Election.

Attached are the 154 questions (see bottom).