THE EUROPEAN Parliament is seeking legal advice on whether Libertas should be allowed to provide new signatures to support its bid to become a pan-European political party.
It has also decided to tighten the existing rules following the fiasco over the recent withdrawal of two Libertas supporters from its application for official status.
“It is good news the parliament is being scrupulous about this and tightening the procedures to ensure taxpayers’ cash cannot be squandered on spurious political parties,” said Liberal MEP Andrew Duff.
The parliament’s bureau decided last night to delay a decision on whether to grant Libertas official status and €200,000 in funding until the rules governing the creation of pan-European parties are clarified. It asked the parliament’s lawyers to study whether Libertas’s application can be approved if it can provide new supporters or whether it should fall because it has now missed the deadline for making applications.
The parliament put on hold its decision to grant Libertas official status and funding when it emerged that two of its seven required political backers had withdrawn support. Estonian MP Igor Grazin and Bulgarian MP Mincho Kuminev both claimed not to have signed Libertas’s application to become a pan-European political party just a day after the bureau backed the Libertas application.
A report by the parliament’s administration into the Libertas application has found that two of the seven required signatures are “irregular”, preventing the granting of official status.
Libertas founder Declan Ganley wrote to European Parliament president Hans Gert Pöttering saying he can provide new signatures to support its application. He claims the two eastern European supporters were “nobbled” and Brussels officials were instructed to find one comma out of place to reject the application.
Libertas does not require the official status to run candidates in the European elections in June and has said it will not use any EU funds it is allocated. The organisation has announced its intention to run candidates in all 27 member states to try to transform the elections into a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Libertas did not return calls yesterday for comment.