Libertas arguments distorted and hypocritical

ON May 22, Libertas spokesperson Caroline Simons was quoted in the media as saying the main reason Libertas was calling for a no vote was because of its (allegedly) negative implications for workers.

Last winter, however, Libertas’s main gripe was the removal of the reference to “undistorted competition” from the European constitution. Recently, it declared that Lisbon would undermine the Common Agricultural Policy and, before that, Declan Ganley attacked the CAP as a “weapon of mass destruction”.

On May 25, Ms Simons said if Lisbon came into effect, France, Germany and two other small countries would be able to “out-vote” the other member states.

This power is non-existent and is a distortion. Ms Simmons is clearly referring the right of four countries to form a legitimate blocking minority against a proposed EU measure.

Libertas is simultaneously decrying a move away from unanimity to qualified majority voting so it is hypocritical then to attack the democratic mechanism which ensures any measure unacceptable to a blocking minority cannot progress. Of course blocking minorities operate now, and Ireland is part of a number of them.

It seems Libertas is unprincipled in its objection to the Lisbon Treaty and is willing to twist any argument to further its ends. What is not clear, however, is what those ends are. While they claim to support the EU, many of the arguments they make have nothing to do with Lisbon but are instead general attacks on Europe.

Proinsias De Rossa MEP

Labour European Office

Liberty Hall

Dublin 1