Dalligate: The Tobacco Directive death and Obama’s resurrection

11:00 6/11/2012 - Πηγή: BankWars

The US election is looking tighter than ever, with Barack Obama moving from a strong lead down to a tenth of a percentage point over his rival. Of course, the election could again be decided by a Florida court, but there is one man in Brussels who is counting on an Obama victory.

Key to the re-election of Barak Obama

may prove the tobacco farmers vote in several States. Large numbers of tobacco producers are concentrated in North Carolina, where one of the world’s major cigarette manufacturers, R. J. Reynolds, have their headquarters in Winston-Salem, but also in the very critical State of Kentucky as well as in Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and another six states with substantial numbers of tobacco growers.

The tobacco lobby in the United Sates is definitely the strongest in the American capital as they pay in “votes,” the “hard currency” of American politics.

Highly placed sources in Washington DC have told New Europe, under condition of anonymity, that one of the ‘hot’ topics discussed in recent private talks between the White House and Berlaymont (not Joseph II) was the Tobacco Directive.

Our sources claim that “if the exercise works” then, a suitably prominent European could get the blessing to become the next UN Secretary General.

Candidates for the UN top job must have the support of the Security Council, who put forward names to the UN General Assembly, but there are a number of ‘informal rules’.

A European citizen, from a small country, with high level institutional experience, to give a hypothetical example, may feel he’s in with a chance and having the indulgence of the White House… wouldn’t hurt.

Now, in an election time, anything can happen and any type of conspiracy theory can be treated with more gravity than it deserves, so caution is advised.

But, that last week the president of the Commission was in Ivory Coast and next week is planning to visit Indonesia, is certainly a coincidence and the whole thing may be a conspiracy theory, one of the many.

While Barroso may once have thought that he might have a chance at a third term, that dream must surely have passed by now. As one observer of Berlaymont said archly, “Three terms? The man’s a walking argument for a one-term limit!”

Presumed Resignation

This, however, may or may not be the political aspect of the “execution” of th Tobacco Directive yet it is not an  argument for any Court. Justice is a different issue and the years of Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac, who invented the very convenient concept of “raison d’État”, are more than half a millennium behind.

In this context, the European Commission should give to the European Court convincing explanations as to why it violated the OLAF manual during the investigation on John Dalli, which if it did not most probably Dalli would have been declared innocent beyond any doubt.

Indeed, John Dalli  was never i