SOME LISBON Treaty opponents had dishonestly misquoted former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing during last year’s referendum campaign, Minister of State for Europe Dick Roche has said.
“It is to be regretted that elements in the No campaign used a quotation from him out of its context in order to argue against the Lisbon Treaty.
“Such tactics are dishonest and do those who use them no credit,” he said.
Mr Roche, who worked alongside the former president during the European Convention, met Mr Giscard in Government Buildings near the end of the latter’s two-day visit to Dublin.
“There was no attempt to hoodwink the public into accepting the treaty. It was and remains dishonest of opponents of the treaty to suggest that there is some hidden agenda behind the Lisbon Treaty,” Mr Roche said.
Libertas attributed a quotation to Mr Giscard in its national poster campaign, alleging that Mr Giscard believed the EU public could be duped into accepting the Lisbon Treaty when some of them had rejected the earlier EU constitution.
Mr Roche insisted that Ireland’s national interest is “to be at the heart of the European Union”.
“Since our referendum last June, the importance of the union, to Ireland and to Europe, has been highlighted many times over – by the events in Georgia last year, by the disruption of gas supplies from Russia in early January, and most of all, by the ongoing global economic and financial crisis.”
