THE LISBON Treaty is dead and should be replaced by a 15- or 25-page EU constitution, Libertas chairman Declan Ganley told the Oireachtas Subcommittee on Ireland's Future in the European Union yesterday.
Commenting on the result of the referendum which took place last June, he said: "It was not a vote against the EU or Ireland's membership. It was a vote against the Lisbon Treaty."
He added that "our membership has been extremely beneficial". The decline in emigration as a result of EU membership had contributed to the fact that, "my children won't have to speak with the same accent as I do".
The referendum result meant there was an opportunity for "a reinvigoration of the European ideal" and "what I really believe can be a new European renaissance". He added: "We have to make the citizens of Europe feel like this is their project. We have to make them stakeholders."
However the Lisbon Treaty was "an affront to the idea of participatory democracy". He said it was "the embodiment of the worst example of what so-called elitism can bring about in Europe".
Describing Nicolas Sarkozy as "the preening prince of the Élysée Palace", he said the French president had promised a "mini-treaty" and had instead delivered a document 10,000 words longer than the European constitution with almost no changes.
Asked by Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley what elements of the Lisbon Treaty could be renegotiated, Mr Ganley said: "This is a dead document." Proposals for a second referendum were "an insult to democracy".
Criticising the Taoiseach, the Libertas chairman said that, when British foreign secretary David Miliband telephoned him after the referendum result, Mr Cowen should have pronounced the treaty dead but instead "he remained silent".
"Your party gave away the very best negotiating card we had, which was to stop the ratification," Mr Ganley said.
Pressed on the issue, Mr Ganley said: "Europe needs a constitution, it should be no more than 25 pages. It should be upfront and honest." He later said he hoped it would be a 15-page document.
Mr Dooley commented that, during the referendum campaign, Mr Ganley had told people that if they voted No, the Lisbon Treaty could be renegotiated.
"You didn't suggest it could be thrown in the bin at that stage."
Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton put it to Declan Ganley that, while he talked constantly about "unelected elites", his own wealth and power put him in a position of "hosting big dinners in the Shelbourne" and was he, therefore, a member of an elite?
Mr Ganley replied: "In terms of my hosting a dinner in the Shelbourne Hotel, I am a citizen and I am free to host anybody I want, anytime I want, and not have that data splashed all over newspapers from leaked documents from one or other government agency."
Green Party Senator Deirdre de Burca said she was confused about Mr Ganley's position. He was keeping company with "diehard Eurosceptics" in the UK and elsewhere, as well as American neo-conservatives, while at the same time propounding a vision of more democracy in Europe.
Labour TD Joe Costello said Mr Ganley's introductory remarks were "very strong on rhetoric and very short on specifics". The Libertas head had supported EU treaties in the past, what was his problem with Lisbon? Mr Ganley said there was a need to get away from having "one treaty after another" which provided the opportunity to "slip things in".