by Kassandra Inge Graessle and Giovanni Kessler are two honest personalities in Brussels, watching out for potential violations of the law. They come from different angles, but have the same targets and goals: To safeguard the legitimacy of the institutions and taxpayers’ money. For the past two years, they have both have spent considerable time and energy over the Dalli case, a case that deprived Jose Barroso of a third term. That was the good thing out of the Dalli case. Many facets of the case are now history, not because it does not deserve attention any more, there are still details to watch, but because such details become of secondary importance compared to other things of our days, currently of great importance both in terms of legitimacy and Community budget. The case unfolding here below concerns a flagrant violation by the European Commission of Community law, enriching shipowners by some €20 billion, at the expense of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) budget. Now, whether the European Commission did that under “death-threats” as Christine Lagarde claimed that she got, possibly from the same beneficiaries of the €20 billion gift by the European Commission, it remains to be seen. Did any Commissioner get “death threats?” Lagarde got them for much less. A new element comes to enlighten an in so far very obscure case. The Director General of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, stated to the Financial Times that she got “death threats” from rich Greeks failing to pay taxes and in the same context made reference to ship-owners. Here below, we quote Financial Times online edition of September 12, 2014. (FT) Greece, though, is another matter: in the past year Lagarde has loudly criticised the failure of rich Greeks to pay their taxes properly. (CL) “I better not say too much because, you know, when I have talked about Greece and its taxes before, I got death threats and we had to increase security,” she mutters. (CL) “But is the shipping industry really paying its taxes? Are others? I don’t think so.” Furthermore, on September 14, the socialist leader of the Greek opposition likely the next Prime Minister of Greece, referring to the statement of Christine Lagarde, stated on record “I have receive same threats in 2012 by a person later ended in jail.” At the time Tsipras among the threats was told, “find us to tax us.” Our case The European Commission infringed its own Directive 2009/29/EC to the benefit of the Shipping Industry. The infringement is worth some €20 billion in unpaid taxes as part of the Emission Trade Scheme (ETS) budget. The main beneficiaries of this Commission refusal to enforce Community legislation are owners of bulk-carrier vessels. Indeed, bulk carriers were to be subject to ETS contributions much more than container transporters and liners as bulk carriers have old heavily polluting engines. The Old Questions On several occasions in the past, we have reported and analysed in detail the scandalous exception of the shipping industry. For years, the European Commission was playing deaf. One week before the Lagarde and Tsipras statements, New Europe brought the issue up again, reminding that the Commission flagrantly infringed EU law to an approximate benefit of €20 billion to the shipping polluting ship-owners. To this effect, we posed four questions to the Secretary General of he Commission Catharine Day who gently replied with a general letter not responding to any the four specific questions, which we repeat as “repetitio est mater studiorum.” (1) What is the reason why such a proposal was not submitted? (2) Who is the Commissioner responsible for such an omission? (3) What is the financial impact of such an omission for the Community ETS budget? (4) Will the Barroso Commission, in the remaining time of its mandate, present the relative proposal to the Parliament and the Council? The New Elements and Our Case The new element, the “death threat” to Christine Lagarde as phrased to the Financial Times, seemingly originates from ship-owners. Ship-owners are also the beneficiaries of the Commission’s Community law infringement worth some € 20 billion. The same front, it seems, that originated the “similar threats” to Alexis Tsipras. New elements imply new, far more important questions for our case. Now on stage are other things, much more serious than the “omissions and commissions” of three Commissioners. Indeed, the new elements may serve an explanation of the Commission’s attitude. We do have two new questions for the Commission. Is there any connection between the ship-owners Lagarde mentioned and the ship-owners who benefitted by the violatons of Community law? This we cannot say but if this is the case, then we are possibly before a situation similar to Lagarde, the more so that the cash involved is much, much more. And, last but not least, were any of the Commissioners, responsible for violating Community law by leaving ship-owners out of the ETS, threatened? We remind you that those politically responsible for the exclusion of the shipping industry from ETS are, Connie Hedegard (Commissioner for Clima), Siim Kallas (Commissioner for Transport) and last but not least Jose Barroso (President of the European Commission).
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