Declan Ganley has announced his intention to turn the Libertas campaign organisation into a pan-European political party. Libertas was central to the Irish ‘No’ on the Lisbon treaty referendum in 2008.

Ganley says that the new political party will field candidates in all 27 European Union states in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections in June 2009. It will run on a platform of democratizing the European institutions, aiming for an elected president and commission.

At the party’s launch in Brussels Ganley told reporters :

“We will give [the EU leaders] the referendum they did not want to give the people of Europe.

We are at a fork in the road, between the Europe of the Lisbon Treaty, an anti-democratic Europe that does not derive its legitimacy from the citizens … and a democratic Europe.”

Ganley insisted that the new party is not eurosceptic. Saying, “This is a pro-European organisation. There is no future for euroscepticism. The European Union is necessary.”

According to the Libertas website, the new party will meet in Brussels in the spring to forge a common platform.

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