Libertas (party)

Libertas
Party leader	Declan Ganley
founding	November 1, 2008
resolution	2010
Headquarters	Tuam, County Galway, Ireland
Affiliate foundation	The Libertas Foundation Ltd.
Colours)	Blue, gold
European party	3, from July 2009 2
EP Group	IND / DEM , from July 2009 EFD

Libertas was a political party at European level that rejected the Lisbon Treaty . It emerged from a citizens' initiative that took place on the occasion of the Irish referendum on this treaty in summer 2008. Declan Ganley was the founder and main financier of the citizens' initiative and president of the party . At the beginning of 2009 Libertas briefly met the conditions for recognition as a European party, but its status was withdrawn a little later.

In the 2009 European elections Libertas appeared in several European countries and reached in France a seat. In addition, she owned another member of the European Parliament to which Finland was elected, but not on a list of Libertas. At the end of 2009, the party ceased its activities, but without formally dissolving. In 2010 the party, which officially had the status of a limited company , was dissolved.

Campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland

Libertas first appeared as a citizens' initiative in 2008 on the occasion of the Irish referendum on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty . On March 12th, Libertas launched a campaign under the slogan Facts, not politics , in which they campaigned for a No in the referendum. The campaign, for which Libertas reportedly invested around 1.5 million euros, admitted that membership of the European Union would be beneficial for Ireland. However, she criticized the fact that the Treaty of Lisbon would reduce Irish influence on decisions in the EU, for example because in future each country should no longer have its own member of the EU Commission . In addition, Libertas warned of new competencies for the EU, which could force Ireland, for example, to increase corporate taxes through the new treaty . Although these claims were rejected as untrue by both the EU Commission and the Irish government, the Libertas campaign was extremely successful. On June 12, 2008, the Lisbon Treaty was rejected in a referendum by 53.4% ​​of the voters.

In September 2008, however , the European Parliament launched an investigation into the financing of the No campaign after indications of irregularities appeared on it. Libertas' activities are said to have been financed by a loan from Declan Ganley, the amount of which is contrary to Irish law. In addition, Ganley's activities with the US Department of Defense - with Ganley's company Rivada Networks, which produces military technology, has business connections - and the CIA have been linked. However, these allegations were rejected by Ganley as well as John D. Negroponte, the US Deputy Secretary of State, and are now under review by the Irish authorities (as of February 2009).

Established as a European political party

After the no in the referendum in mid-June, Ganley announced his plan on July 15, 2008 to convert Libertas into a political party at European level and to run for the 2009 European elections. A prerequisite for founding a political party was to have MEPs or members of national or regional parliaments in at least seven member states. In January 2009 Ganley visited Poland; There was also a conversation between him and the Eurosceptic Czech President Václav Klaus when he was on a state visit to Ireland in November 2008. Ultimately, Libertas was able to meet the criterion at the beginning of February 2009 when it won the membership of the British House of Lords David Alton (independent), the French MEPs Philippe de Villiers and Paul-Marie Coûteaux ( MPF ), the Greek MEP Georgios Georgiou ( LAOS ), the Finnish MP Timo Soini ( Peru-S ), the Estonian MP Igor Gräzin ( RE ), the Bulgarian MP Mincho Hristov (independent) and the Polish regional MP Cyprian Gutkowski ( LPR ). On February 2nd, 2009 Libertas was recognized as a European political party by the Bureau of the European Parliament . It was the first European party that was not based on an infrastructure of national parties, even if it later concluded alliances with so-called affiliate parties . With the recognition, Libertas was also entitled to funding of just over 200,000 euros from the budget of the European Union . However, Libertas said she would not use the EU funds before the 2009 European elections.

Shortly after it was founded as a European party, however, Igor Gräzin and a little later also Mincho Hristov publicly denied that they had given their consent to join Libertas. This would mean that Libertas would no longer meet the criteria for founding a European party. EU Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering therefore launched an investigation into whether Libertas was wrongly assigned this status. The party status was temporarily suspended and later not granted again due to the cessation of the activities of Libertas.

program

Libertas described itself on its homepage as a pro-European party, which however rejected the current structures of the European Union and in particular the Lisbon Treaty as "undemocratic". Instead, the German section of Libertas - a pan-European program of the party did not exist - called for a new basic EU treaty and named as additional goals, among other things, subsidiarity, transparency, democracy and closeness to the citizen. Libertas Germany suggested, among other things, that the European Parliament should in future be involved in legislation in all policy areas and, at the same time, EU laws in the Council of the EU, in principle with a majority of three quarters, as concrete possibilities for their implementation in the area of EU legislative procedures States should be decided, which at the same time should make up half of the EU population. At the same time, the national parliaments should approve a “legislative program” proposed by the European Commission for the European institutions in advance . Ultimately, it should be left to the national parliaments to decide whether to give EU guidelines a legally binding character; The EU could therefore no longer have issued any generally binding supranational directives and regulations.

While the party regularly emphasized its general approval of the EU in its official statements, various well-known sympathizers of Libertas, such as the Czech MEP Vladimir Zelezny , who in January 2009 was one of the first Central and Eastern European parliamentarians to express his willingness to become a Libertas member declared himself "Eurosceptic". The party members presented at the beginning of February 2009 were also largely known as right-wing conservative European critics; the three European parliamentarians de Villiers, Couteaux and Georgiou belonged to the Eurosceptic European parliamentary group Independence and Democracy .

European elections 2009

Libertas wanted to run for the first time across Europe for the European elections in 2009 , but did not meet the electoral requirements in many countries. That is why she began to form electoral alliances with small national parties (so-called affiliate parties ) that were allowed to campaign under her name. In Spain , Libertas entered into an alliance with the Catalan party Ciudadanos and in Germany with the Christian-conservative UP party . In some countries, such as the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, Libertas competed itself. Ultimately, however, it was only successful in France , where an alliance of the parties MPF and CPNT came under the name Libertas and won a seat for Philippe de Villiers . In addition, Timo Soini , who is also a member of Libertas, was elected in Finland . However, he was not on a list under the name Libertas , but as the top candidate of his national party True Finns . Both de Villiers and Soini joined the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group .

Results of the parties and lists that stood up for Libertas:

country	List name	Voting share	Seats
Lithuania	Tautos prisikėlimo partija	1.04%	-
Latvia	Libertas Latvia (List)	4.30%	-
Greece	Comma Fileleftheron	0.13%	-
Germany	ON	0.14%	-
Czech Republic	Libertas Czech Republic (with ND )	0.94%
Italy	Polo dell'Autonomia (with PP , MpA , La Destra )	2.22%	-
Netherlands	Libertas Netherlands	0.32%	-
Ireland	Libertas Ireland	5.45%	-
Sweden	Libertas Sweden	not started
Estonia	Libertas Estonia	0.56%	-
Poland	Libertas Poland (with LPR , PSL Piast and others)	1.14%	-
United Kingdom	Pro-Democracy: Libertas.eu	0.5%	-
France	Libertas France (list with MPF and others)	4.80%	1
Spain	Libertas Spain (list with Ciudadanos and others)	0.15%	-

Cessation of activities

After the Irish approved the Lisbon Treaty in a second referendum with a two-thirds majority , there was no more party-political cooperation. The Libertas party has not officially dissolved, but is no longer in evidence. The associated websites no longer exist.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} http://www.irishtimes.com/news/in-short-1.648831
2. ^ RTÉ, March 12, 2008: Anti-Lisbon treaty campaign is launched .
3. ↑ Irish Independent, March 12, 2008: Treaty camps matching each other in € 3.5m splurge on poll .
4. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 25, 2008 Ireland: EU referendum in the twilight ( memento of the original from February 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
5. ↑ Times Online , September 28, 2008: CIA 'backed' Irish battle against Brussels treaty .
6. ↑ Euobserver.com, December 10, 2008: US congressmen rebuff Irish anti-Lisbon left .
7. ↑ Irish Times, July 16, 2008: Libertas may contest European elections .
8. ↑ anti-Lisbon party obtains EU recognition and funding. In: Euractiv . Retrieved February 3, 2009, July 6, 2018 (UK English). 
9. ^ Libertas "founding member" denies participation [DE]. In: Euractiv. February 5, 2009, accessed July 6, 2018 (updated January 29, 2010). 
10. ^ Die Zeit online, February 3, 2009: Review: the EU-critical party “Libertas” is threatened with extinction .
11. ↑ Irish Times, January 22, 2009: Czech Libertas recruit has conviction for evading duty .
12. ↑ Libertas: UP party and Libertas form alliance for EU elections in June ( Memento of the original from July 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated May 12, 2009, viewed May 15, 2009. 

Web links

Commons : Libertas.eu  - collection of images, videos and audio files