EU Anti-Smoking Offices Ransacked

[Matt Gluggles]

.

First there was the leaked draft of the EU Tobacco Products Directive

Then, there was the resignation of John Dalli, the EU Health Commissioner over a Fraud investigation relating to the draft EU Tobacco Products Directive.

Now there is another part of the drama.


the Smoke Free Partnership (SFP)
the European Respiratory Society (ERS)
the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA).

In the early hours of the morning on Thursday 18th October, these three organisations had their offices, in Brussels, overturned and ransacked.

the ERS said that confidential data relating to the revision of the directive and other issues were stolen from its office.

According to the ERS, the outdoor sensors were destroyed and the intruders "managed to skilfully evade indoor sensors within the office"

The draft EU Tobacco Products Directive must now be completely dead in the water. Any new Health Commissioner would have to start again completely from scratch, and can no longer just pick up where Dalli left off.

There was the possibility that the Directive could have attempted to regulate electronic cigarettes by limiting the strength of nicotine in e-liquid and cartomisers.

More details here

www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/world/Brussels-anti-tobacco-NGOs-overturned-ransacked-by-intruders-20121018


I always suspected that there was a link between the leaked document and the Fraud resignation of Dalli, now I am sure.

There appears to be a much bigger drama going on behind the scenes. It looks like someone, somewhere does not want changes to Tobacco legistation in the EU and is taking some very robust action.

[Matt Gluggles]

Also in the Guardian

Anti-tobacco campaigners are convinced that they are looking at a dirty tricks campaign designed to strangle the new directive (TPD) at birth

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/18/anti-smoking-campaigners-accuse-tobacco-lobby-burglary

[giles]

Interesting.
I don't think you steal data to stop someone else having access to it - too likely someone has a copy.
More likely you want to know what was in the data, so you can refute it, or so that you can find the source.
Maybe the source, since they also took personnel files.
I wonder if it has more to do with this Maltese crook than with tobacco.