News | Sunday, 22 March 2009

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Former AN deputy to contest EP elections with ‘Libertas’

David Darmanin
Mary Gauci, former deputy leader of far-right political party Azzjoni Nazzjonali, has been announced leader of Libertas.eu Malta: the local branch of a newly formed pan-European party founded by Irish multi-millionaire Declan Ganley, by whose presence and eloquence Gauci was quickly upstaged at yesterday’s launch event.
A state-registered nurse by profession, Gauci will be contesting the 6 June European Parliament elections under the Libertas ticket. Ganley did not exclude the possibility of enrolling a second Maltese candidate on the new party’s list, but no there was no mention of names of other prospective candidates.
“The setting up of Libertas marks a historic moment,” Gauci said in her opening speech. “Our strength lies in that we are a pan-European party, across the 27 member states. The EU should be more democratic, and citizens of member states should remain citizens.”
Libertas was purposely set up to contest EP elections, with its primary aim being to reform European institutions so that more attention is given to individual member states, thus facilitating the pooling of sovereignty.
The political party finds its roots as a successful lobby group created to advocate a “No” vote against the Treaty of Lisbon referendum, held in Ireland last June.
Reportedly, the retired MEP Jens-Peter Bonde, a well-known Eurosceptic, was one of the main architects behind the lobby group’s upgrade to a European political party.
Among the rumoured MEP candidates running for Libertas abroad, one finds the French aristocrats Philippe de Villiers and Paul-Marie Couteaux – both associated with the Mouvement Pour la France, a far-right Eurosceptic political group advocating anti-Islamism.
But Ganley stressed that Libertas is neither a Eurosceptic party nor a far-right one. “We are pro-European and happy with the pooling of sovereignty. But European leaders have to be accountable,” he said. ”When all our candidates are announced, you will be surprised at the diversity of backgrounds in our list,” he said.
“There has been an attempt by people in Brussels to label us as Communists first, and then of having American interests, but both seemed to fail,” Ganley said in his reply to our questions.
The Irish entrepreneur, who is said to be personally worth around €300 million, is the chairman of a defence contracting company specialising in military telecommunications. It appears that a number of contracts he has with the Pentagon amount to at least $200 million.
“The public is not aware that the majority of laws are initiated in Brussels by unelected EU officials. Your parliament, along with many others, did not hold a debate before ratifying the Lisbon agenda. The signatories did not even read it. Your president will represent you as a European and will not ask you for a vote. We’ve got a problem and we need to fix it.”
Ganley said that if Malta has five seats at its disposal, across the EU Libertas will have many more.
“You need to elect a member in a party whose voice can be heard,” he said before describing other political blocs in the European parliament as “different parties sharing a photocopier and a coffee machine”.
“As we say in Ireland, ‘horses for courses’... and the Libertas horse is built for the European course,” he added. “We are going to be a voice they can’t ignore. We are not even there yet and they already hate us, and the reason for this is because they know that we are the agents of change and that we will be effective, and they’re terrified of this.”

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