Europees Parlement onderzoekt handtekeningen voor partij Libertas (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament is to conduct an investigation into the signatures used to try and establish the anti-Lisbon treaty Libertas group as a European political party, after two politicians withdrew their support.

"The administration will contact all the European, national and regional law-makers whose signatures were submitted by Libertas, when it applied for the status of political party at European level, in order to verify the situation," said the parliament in a statement on Thursday evening (5 February).

The move followed a meeting of the leaders of the parliament's political groups.

It comes after days of claims and counter-claims as Estonian MP Igor Grazin and Mintcho Hristov Kouminev, a Bulgarian MP, both denied having signed papers on founding a pan-European Libertas party.

Their denial meant that EU funding to the tune of €200,000 due to be given to the party was suspended, with EU rules requiring representation in a quarter of member states - seven - to be eligible for funding.

Libertas, for its part, has hit back saying both politicians knew what they were signing up to and published pictures of what it says is Mr Grazin's signature on founding the party on the web.

"They are both seasoned politicians, they submitted a copy of their passports - something you do not do for a cause you do not know anything about," Anita Kelly, Libertas spokesperson told EUobserver.

She said Libertas is going to carry on with its Europe-wide campaign anyway.

"This is not such a big issue for us because we were never focussed on the funding anyway and it doesn't in any way hinder our European campaign going forward."

"We are, of course, securing additional signatures for the application and we will be forwarding the application to the European Parliament," she added, but refused to give a timeframe.

The parliament said that if it concludes that Libertas abided by the rules then its recognition as a European party will "proceed in the normal way."

Libertas was established by Irish business man Declan Ganley in the run-up to Ireland's referendum on the EU's Lisbon treaty.

The treaty was rejected by Irish voters last June and Mr Ganley set about establishing an EU-wide party ahead of the June European elections based on an anti-treaty platform.