DALLI AFFAIR : CATHERINE DAY EXPLAINS HERSELF TO MEPS.

• Position: Brief article

The reason Catherine Day delayed the inter-service consultation on the Tobacco Products Directive was to prevent the text from being leaked, she told members of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT), on 22 January.

During the European Commission's 2011 budget discharge procedure, CONT MEPs asked to hear the reasons for the two-time postponement of the inter-service consultation. In a letter dated 25 July 2012, the secretary general of the Commission expressed serious doubts about the directive, then asked, in a 23 September letter, for the text not to be presented until after the mid-October EU summit. This latter argument was deemed improbable by MEPs given the strategic agenda of summits around the eurozone crisis.

Day explained to MEPs that the aim of the Secretariat-General was to ensure that legislative proposals respected rules, to ensure that there were no surprises, and to check the agenda of the plenary sessions and the...