José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, will testify at the EU’s General Court on Monday (7 July) in a case brought by former European commissioner for health John Dalli, who resigned from the Commission in 2012 over allegations of soliciting bribes from tobacco lobbyists.

Dalli, from Malta, has challenged his dismissal and wants the court to annul Barroso’s request for his resignation. His legal team, led by lawyer Laure Levi of Lallemand & Legros, are seeking the annulment of Barroso’s “oral decision […] to exercise his prerogative to require the applicant to submit his resignation as a member of the Commission”.

The court will also hear from Johannes Laitenberger, Barroso’s head of cabinet, Luis Romero Requena, the head of the Commission’s legal service, Frédéric Vincent, who was the spokesperson for Dalli and is now spokesperson for Tonio Borg, the European commissioner for health, and Joanna Darmanin, who was Dalli’s head of cabinet.

He has also asked for €1 million in damages for the harm to his reputation and loss of income as a commissioner.

Barroso maintains that he did not force Dalli to leave the Commission. The Commission president will be accompanied at the court in Luxembourg by his head of cabinet, Johannes Laitenberger, and the commission’s head of legal services, Luis Romero Requena. Joanna Darmanin, Dalli’s former head of cabinet, and Frederic Vincent, Dalli’s former spokesperson, will also be there, as will Dalli himself.

Some MEPs who have been following the case closely will also attend the proceedings in Luxembourg, including José Bové of the Greens.

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Earlier this month, Emily O’Reilly, the European Ombudsman, opened an investigation into the Commission’s meetings with tobacco lobbyists during the period in which the tobacco products directive was being revised.

Corporate Europe Observatory, a transparency group, filed a complaint in May, saying that the Commission did not publicly disclose several meetings with tobacco lobbyists as required by the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, to which the EU is a signatory.