The EU commissioner who resigned on the grounds he was innocent

I don’t suppose too many Coffee House readers will have noticed, but the EU is currently without a dedicated health commissioner. This is because the holder of that important office, a nondescript former Maltese politician called John Dalli, resigned last week in connection with an alleged lobbying scandal. So, until they can find another nondescript Maltese politican to replace him (the country’s foreign minister looks as if he is to be the lucky guy), our health needs at euro level are in the acting hands of one Maros Serfcovic, a Slovak, who is also the Commission’s commissioner for administration. This makes him the EU-equivalent of Jim Hacker, the Minister for Administrative Affairs, though in his case that was meant to be satirical.

The circumstances of Dalli’s resignation are slightly strange. A Maltese businessman, claiming to be a friend of his, went to a Swedish tobacco manufacturer and said that, if they paid him enough, he would get Dalli to alter a proposed tobacco products directive in their favour.