THE EUROPEAN Commission is engaging in a "deliberate policy of information suppression" before the Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland, Libertas chairman Declan Ganley claimed in Galway yesterday.
Speaking at a debate on the treaty organised by Galway Chamber of Commerce, Mr Ganley said leaked documents from Brussels and exchanges between Irish and British diplomats revealed earlier this week were proof of this.
Mr Ganley said he was shocked to hear from European Commission president José Manuel Barroso in Dublin this week that if Irish people voted against the treaty there was "no plan B".
If this was the case it indicated either an "arrogance" or "incompetence", or the commission was "lying", Mr Ganley said.
From a business perspective, Galway voters should also be concerned about the fact that Ireland would be "handing over exclusive competency in the area of foreign direct investment" to Brussels under the treaty.
Mr Ganley also referred to details in the leaked e-mail which indicated that the Government was holding the Lisbon Treaty referendum in June rather than October because of "the risk of unhelpful developments during the French presidency - particularly related to EU defence". French president Nicolas Sarkozy was also described as "completely unpredictable".
Mr Ganley claimed the same Mr Sarkozy had explained that he was not holding a referendum on the treaty in France because "French people would vote No".
France had voted against a European constitution - "some 95 per cent of which is in this treaty" - and the Dutch electorate, which had also voted against the constitution, was also being "ignored".
Speaking in favour of the treaty, Labour MEP Proinsias de Rossa denied that the treaty took any power away from EU states, and that the five exclusive competencies held by the European Commission remained the same.
Issues such as climate change demanded the sort of Europe-wide response that the Lisbon Treaty would provide, and Mr De Rossa urged people to read the report on the security implications of global warming by Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for common foreign and security policy.
Mr De Rossa said that there were two brands of "knee-jerk reactions" to the Lisbon Treaty - that by Mr Ganley and his Libertas group, which sought a single market without a social dimension, and the nationalist brand articulated by Sinn Féin.
There was also the "Joe Higgins brand", as articulated by the former Socialist TD, which sought abolition of the common market altogether.
If Ireland voted against the treaty, Mr De Rossa asked, how could these "polar opposites" then be reconciled?
The Lisbon Treaty represented the "middle ground".
Were he alive today, Labour Party founder James Connolly would be scathing in his criticism of the kind of "petty chauvinism displayed by Eurosceptics", said Mr De Rossa.
