THE Workers' Party has accused its former associates in Democratic Left of being "dishonest" about the Maastricht Treaty. The WP's general secretary, Mr Pat Quearney, said DL was associated with an anti Maastricht grouping in the European Parliament, yet it had accepted the treaty in the Coalition's programme for government.
A DL spokeswoman responded that the party's opposition to Maastricht was a matter of public record. "However, Maastricht was passed by the people and we are constrained to abide by its parameters and we accepted that when negotiating the Programme for Government", she said.
Mr Quearney pointed out that DL was linked with the anti Maastricht united left grouping, GUE-NGL, in the European Parliament. However, the DL spokeswoman responded that opposition to Maastricht was not the sole criterion for membership of the grouping.
Mr Quearney represented the WP at a meeting of the GUENGL in Rome on December 20th, hosted by Italy's "Refoundation" Communist Party, the orthodox Marxist rump of the former Italian Communist Party. His presence at the meeting was disputed by Mr Carlos Carnero of the Spanish Izquierda Unida (United Left) party.
The GUE-NGL grouping is to hold a meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg today to plan a mass rally against unemployment in Europe, expected to be held in Paris in March. DL will be represented but an invitation to the WP was withdrawn after objections from other parties, understood to have included DL.