Weinig aandacht voor beleidskwesties in eerste verkiezingsdebat Brussel (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Libertas founder Declan Ganley went head-to-head with Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit in a highly anticipated debate on Wednesday evening (1 April), but the discussion was short on substance and dragged down by mud-slinging.

The first political debate of its kind in Brussels, attended by around 500 people and lasting almost two hours, it was meant to shed light on why voters should cast their ballot in the June European elections for either the anti-Lisbon treaty Libertas party or the Greens.

"The democratic voices of millions of people have been ignored," said Mr Ganley, who spearheaded a campaign against the Lisbon treaty, resulting in Ireland's No vote last year. He pledged his party "would actually do something about [democracy]."

Mr Cohn-Bendit's take on the same question saw him say that his group would defend "the ecological transformation of the means of production."

After this initial exchange, there was little else on actual policy issues. They parried back and forth on the necessity of unanimity in European politics.

Mr Cohn-Bendit said unanimity is the "death of democracy," while Mr Ganley insisted that it forms the "rules of this club" - meaning the Irish No vote should stop the treaty for all countries.

Most of the questions from the audience were directed at Mr Ganley, an Irish businessman turned politician, who remains a mystery to many in Brussels even as he is in the process of establishing a pan-European political movement.

They mainly concerned what Mr Ganley's actual policies are, with Libertas yet to produce an election manifesto. One questioner asked him what EU powers he would return to member states and another asked how he hoped to get policies together since Libertas candidates - often coming from a range of political backgrounds - are so different.

The policy questions went largely unanswered, although Mr Ganley said he would like to make subsidiarity work, would be happy to see energy issues dealt with at the EU level and wanted to promote entrepreneurship. Subsidiarity is the principle that decisions should be made at local level where possible.

Calling the Lisbon treaty – a copy of which he brandished above his head at several times during the debate – a "ridiculous thing," Mr Ganley said he would like a new treaty of "no more than 25 pages" that sets out a "bold vision for Europe" which would then be voted on by "the people."

Mr Cohn-Bendit pointed out that first the text had to be written and agreed on by 27 member states, which is why the text of the doomed European Constitution and now the Lisbon treaty is so unwieldy.

The green politician managed to score a clear point off the Libertas man on transparency – an issue Mr Ganley has made the cornerstone of him European campaign. He asked him why Libertas delayed so long in answering an Irish ethics committee on funding for its pre-referendum campaign and why he did not publish the information on his website.

Mr Ganley only sent the information to the committee on Tuesday (31 March) following a series of funding questions it raised in a report on the referendum campaign.

Dishing the dirt

The low point of the debate, which was relatively cordial throughout, happened fairly early on when the two – each armed with a sheath of notes - tried to smear each other.

Mr Cohn-Bendit questioned Mr Ganley about his business links with the US military and whether his dealings in Albania had contributed to the 1990s financial collapse there.

Mr Ganley insisted on his legitimate interests in both cases but used the moment to read an extract from a book published by Mr Cohn-Bendit in 1975 (Le Grand Bazar) on his dealings with children in a Kindergarten.

The passage concerns "caressing" children. Defending the book, Mr Cohn-Bendit said it was written in a different context, the 1970s, when there was a lot of discussion about the "sexuality of children."

"In this time, a lot of shit was written and some of it was mine," said Mr Cohn-Bendit, adding that he had won a €500 bet that Mr Ganley would raise the issue.

Mr Ganley subsequently tried to get some more mileage out of the passage.

However, the audience's collective intake of breath and some booing suggested Mr Ganley had lost its sympathy at that point. One of the first questioners said he had hoped the debate would be more about policy issues and less about their respective personal histories.