GREEN PARTY:SOME OF the No posters in the Lisbon Treaty campaign were "entirely misleading", Minister for the Environment John Gormley said yesterday.
“Posters are advertising and very powerful advertising,” he said. He added that some of the No posters worked well.
Mr Gormley said that the posters relating to the minimum wage was “a lie”.
The Minister was speaking yesterday at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs.
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD, Sinn Féin, asked Mr Gormley if the Green Party now supported European common defence, compatible with Nato, which seemed to increase the ability of the EU to deploy troops in non-EU countries.
Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins said that Mr Gormley had once said that the EU’s aim, over time, was to create a military force to rival that of the United States.
Mr Gormley said his party had never adopted any official position relating to the EU constitution or the Lisbon Treaty initially.
The party subsequently adopted a position on Lisbon when it secured a two-thirds majority from party members.
He said that he still felt that the original EU constitution should have been voted on by way of a Europe-wide referendum.
He added that he did not support a common defence.
Mr Gormley said that he had a problem with Mr Higgins’s approach to politics.
“He has always engaged in the politics of negativity,” he added.
“It is easy to be consistent when you are against everything. And I mean everything.”
Mr Higgins replied: “That is rich coming from you, John.”
