EC attacks treaty claims

ANTI-TREATY campaigners are distorting the truth and telling lies, claims vice-president of the European Commission Margot Wallstrom.

The outspoken head of communications for the commission has denied she told the Government that the commission would “tone down or delay” anything that might persuade voters to reject the Lisbon treaty.

Writing in her blog, she has also accused campaign group Libertas of misquoting her from a report in the Irish Examiner.

Earlier this week, the Irish Daily Mail ran a front-page story quoting an alleged email between the government’s head of the EU unit at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dan Mulhall, and a senior diplomat at the British embassy in Dublin, Elizabeth Green.

The newspaper claims the email, which it did not publish, said that Ms Wallstrom told Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern “that the commission was willing to tone down or delay messages that might be unhelpful” in the lead-up to June’s referendum.

However, Ms Wallstrom’s spokesman, Joe Hennon, said yesterday: “We never said we would sit on anything until after the referendum. What messages are there that we could tone down? We are the guardians of the treaty and make legislative proposals, and that is not going to change.

“She told them the commission’s work programme did not have anything amazingly controversial on it. Things like the World Trade Organisation talks we have no control over,” said Mr Hennon.