LIBERTAS BECAME embroiled in fresh controversy yesterday following its attempts to persuade a Swedish Eurosceptic party to merge with the organisation in Sweden.
Sören Wibe, leader of Junilistan (The June List), claims that representatives from anti-Lisbon Treaty party Libertas offered considerable sums of money, including almost €1 million on one occasion, if his party agreed to change its name to Junilistan-Libertas.
After the story appeared in the Swedish media earlier this week, Anita Kelly, a spokeswoman for Libertas, told Sweden’s state-funded radio station P1 that no such offer had been made. “We did not make any offer to any party to run with Libertas or anything like that. We have discussed budgets as we would with anyone, but money was not offered,” she said.
Libertas was registered as a political party by the Swedish Election Authority on Tuesday after the organisation gathered the 1,500 signatures required for registration.
Mr Wibe, whose party was formed the year after Swedish voters rejected the adoption of the euro in a 2003 referendum, told The Irish Times he had met with Libertas founder Declan Ganley in Sweden in January. The offers of financial assistance had come from Libertas representatives of Scandinavian origin on other occasions, and not from Mr Ganley, he added.
“One of my colleagues was offered 10 million kronor [about €900,000] for the party and, in other discussions, it was clear that sums of that size were available,” Mr Wibe said.
“I have at least a dozen witnesses who can verify that these approaches were made.”
Junilistan garnered 14 per cent of the vote in Sweden’s 2004 European elections and won three seats in the European Parliament out of the country’s allocation of 19. The party is a member of the Independence and Democracy grouping in Brussels.
Libertas intends to run candidates in all 27 member states in the European Parliament elections in June in an attempt to transform the ballot into a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Mr Wibe said he was shocked by the nature of Libertas’s overtures to his party. “I believe [Libertas’s] behaviour was extremely unethical,” he said yesterday. “I was insulted. It would be extremely unethical for our party to be funded by a millionaire from another country. It goes against everything we stand for.”
Of Mr Ganley, he said: “I do believe that he means well, but I also believe he is not a politician. He doesn’t understand that doing politics is not the same as doing business.”
In a statement posted on its website, Junilistan said: “Politics is not money. Politics is credibility and being true to the message you deliver to your voters.”
Libertas did not return calls yesterday for comment.