EU party Libertas leaves Dutch without cash

Thursday 11 June 2009

The pan-European party Libertas, created by Irish businessman Declan Ganley to fight in last week's European elections, did not come up with the promised cash for its operation in the Netherlands, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.

Eline van den Broek, who headed the Dutch campaign, had expected €1.1m to fight for a seat in the European parliament.

The party spent €350,000 'in good faith'. 'But because no money was being made over from Ireland we had to restrict our activities. We made tv adverts but we could not pay for air time,' Van den Broek told the paper.

On Wednesday, Ganley closed the Libertas offices in Brussels and Dublin, two days after announcing his withdrawal from politics. Libertas won some 14,000 votes in the Netherlands.

'It would be easy to assume he is a rip-off merchant, but he is too rich for that,' Van den Broek told Nos tv later. 'Maybe he has been put under pressure to stop. Why else would you want to scupper your own campaign.'

Nos says the Dutch party leader put €20,000 of her own money into the campaign.

The Spanish Libertas campaign only received a 'fraction' of the €4m it had been promised, the Volkskrant said. Campaign leader Miguel Duran is working on a legal claim against Ganley, together with the French and Portuguese parties. 'The Dutch branch is welcome to join us,' he told the Volkskrant.

© DutchNews.nl

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