John Dalli was immediately barred from entering the European Commission headquarters in Brussels in the wake of the snus tobacco scandal that led to his resignation last Tuesday.
These are the rules, which are followed strictly
He was also not allowed to use any of its services as soon as Commission President Jose Manoel Barroso’s office gave him the news.
“Mr Dalli was not allowed to enter into his office of the Berlaymont building as he was not a member of the Commission any longer. These are the rules, which are followed strictly,” the former Commissioner’s spokesman told The Sunday Times.
Mr Dalli was forced to resign by Mr Barroso after the EU’s anti-fraud office concluded he was aware that his former canvasser had requested a large sum of money to use his contacts with the former Commissioner to change the EU’s tobacco rules. Mr Dalli denies these accusations.
According to Mr Dalli, although he had asked Mr Barroso to give him 24 hours to consult his lawyers and family on whether he should resign, the Commission President gave him just 45 minutes to hand in his resignation or be sacked.
Commission sources said the fast decision and dynamics of the Commission bureaucracy took Mr Dalli by surprise – so much so that although he wanted to make a statement to the media after his meeting with Mr Barroso, he was denied access to the Commission’s press service.
“Mr Dalli wanted us to issue a press release contradicting the position taken by Mr Barroso.
“We obviously couldn’t attend to Mr Dalli’s request and we had to explain to him that he was no longer a Commission official,” sources close to the press service said.
Instead, Mr Dalli used the services of a Brussels-based newspaper – New Europe – to issue his statement.
An e-mail sent to Brussels-based journalists late at night by Alexandros Koronakis, director of New Europe, contained Mr Dalli’s words.
Entitled ‘Foreword on behalf of Commissioner Dalli’, Mr Koronakis wrote: “On behalf of the Office of Commissioner John Dalli, we forward you the press statement which he was unable to disseminate through the European Commission as they did not have the technical capacity to disseminate it at that moment.”