THE EUROPEAN Parliament has put on hold a decision to give Libertas €200,000 in EU funds after an Estonian MP yesterday denied ever backing the anti-Lisbon party.
Igor Grazin, who sits in the Estonian parliament, is one of seven national or European politicians that Libertas, run by Declan Ganley, used to apply for official status as a pan-European party.
But just hours after senior MEPs sitting on the parliament’s bureau backed Libertas’s request to gain official status and access to EU funds Mr Grazin denied signing its application.
“I have never signed any papers asking for recognition of Libertas as a political party in the EU and all corresponding claims are utterly untrue,” wrote Mr Grazin in a signed affidavit presented to parliament president Hans-Gert Pottering by the Liberal group.
Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, who uncovered the affidavit signed by Mr Grazin, asked Mr Pottering to “urgently review” the decision to recognise Libertas and give it EU funds.
“Mr Ganley appears to have fallen at the first hurdle. Apparently his claim to have recruited enough supporters was untrue. What Europe really needs is a bit more Veritas and a lot less Libertas,” said Mr Duff, who is a strong supporter of the Lisbon Treaty.
A parliament spokeswoman confirmed that the €200,000 funds allocated to Libertas on Monday night would be put on hold until the matter had been cleared up. “We will have to review this situation in light of this new development,” she said.
A Libertas spokesman, John McGurk, said the group was not worried about the review because Mr Grazin had signed the document in Libertas’s Brussels office.
“We do have a document with his signature on it and Mr Ganley and Jens Peter Bonde are willing to sign affadavits about that,” said Mr McGurk, who added Libertas could get a politician from another state to sign the application if that is what was required to get official status.
Under the rules governing the founding of European political parties an organisation must present an application with the signature of at least seven European or national politicians from different countries, representing a quarter of the 27 EU states. Libertas’s application listed Mr Grazin as one of seven different nationalities that had signed up to support the organisation, which plans to compete in the European elections on an anti-Lisbon Treaty platform in all 27 EU states.
The other supporters include three Eurosceptic MEPs: Philippe de Villiers and Paul Marie Coûteaux, both members of the Movement for France, and Greek MEP Georgios Georgiou. The national politicians backing Libertas – Lord Alton, a life peer in the British House of Lords; Finnish MP Timo Soini; Bulgarian MP Mincho Kuminev; and Polish regional assemblyman Cyprian Gutkowski – all of whom hold either Eurosceptic or staunchly conservative views.
Mr Grazin would not return calls when contacted yesterday.
The parliament’s bureau is expected to reconvene in a few weeks to consider the matter. Libertas was one of 10 European political parties that on Monday night were granted access to an €10 million annual EU fund distributed by the parliament to help create a pan-European political culture.
Giscard to debate treaty in Dublin: page 5; EU publicity campaign to target Lisbon No voters: page 12