Joseph Daul, the leader of the centre-right group in the European Parliament, is demanding the resignation of Giovanni Kessler, the head of the European Union’s anti-fraud office.

Daul’s announcement came after Malta’s police commissioner said at the weekend that he would not be pursuing criminal charges against John Dalli, who resigned as a European commissioner last October.

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Dalli’s resignation was demanded – according to Dalli – by José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, acting on the basis of a critical report from the anti-fraud office, OLAF.

The report alleged that Dalli was aware that a lobbyist, who was offering his services to tobacco companies wanting to shape forthcoming EU legislation on tobacco, had claimed connections with the commissioner.

That report was then passed on to the public prosecutor in Malta. On Saturday (8 June), Peter Paul Zammit, who became the country’s police commissioner in April, said that investigations were continuing into the allegations against Dalli, but, having discussed the case with the attorney general, he did not feel there was sufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.

‘Unprofessional’ approach

Ingeborg Grässle, a German centre-right MEP, said the police commissioner’s statement was “a declaration of bankruptcy on the work of OLAF director-general Giovanni Kessler who personally led the investigation of Dalli”. She said it showed up “the unprofessional work of the OLAF management which did not respect their own standards of investigation and according to the OLAF supervisory committee breached EU law”.

At a hearing before the Parliament’s budgetary control committee ten days ago, Kessler said it would be for the courts to decide on the legality of OLAF’s methods.

Grässle has long been critical of Kessler, and José Bové, a French Green member of the European Parliament, and Bart Staes, a Belgian Green MEP, have also demanded Kessler’s resignation. But the criticism from Daul raises the stakes.

“The European Commission, guardian of European law, must draw the right conclusions and force the resignation of Giovanni Kessler…whose position has become politically and legally untenable,” he said in a joint statement with Grässle.

Kessler is due to appear before the committee members on Tuesday (18 June).