[7] Attending that celebration was Danish Eurosceptic[8] and former President of the EUDemocrats[9] and recently retired[10] MEP Jens-Peter Bonde,[7] who had been a "no" campaigner during the referendum.
[11][12] On 15 July 2008, RTÉ News on Two covered Ganley's comments at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he stated that Libertas intended running as a European political party.
[13] On 20 September 2008, The Irish Times reported[14] that Bonde and Czech president Václav Klaus pledged to help Ganley to launch Libertas.
[15] On 30 October 2008, Ganley registered a company based in Moyne Park, Tuam, County Galway[nb 1][1][3] called the Libertas Party Limited.
[26] An electoral list called "Libertas: Free Citizens" (Bulgarian: Либертас: Свободните граждани) was formed by some 30 national and local Non-governmental organizations.
[28] An appeal filed by Nikolay Bliznakov was turned down by Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court on the grounds that the list had not proven the required deposit had not given the names of its constituent parties.
However, as Hungarian concerns that a disorganized EU would only serve Russian strategic interests could not be dissipated, no list was fielded on behalf of Libertas.
[53] In April 2009, the Portuguese ecologist Earth Party (MPT) announced in a joint press conference with Ganley that it would run for the 2009 European Parliament election with an open electoral list under the banner of Libertas.eu.
[54] While the vice-president of the EUDemocrats, Peter Kopecký had already announced the foundation of a Libertas Slovensko branch,[55] he changed his mind in late February and decided to head the list of the small, but already established Agrarian and Countryside Party.
[56] Ganley had to look out to other options and met in Bratislava with leaders of the conservative parties KDS and OKS, and with Richard Sulík, the founder of the new (Sloboda a Solidarita).
While Sulík, whom Ganley had already contacted before, still didn't show much interest, Vladimír Palko (KDS) agreed to bring in their joint list with OKS into the European network.
[60][61] Having made the promise to do so before the election, Ganley retired from politics following his defeat on 8 June 2009:[60][61] the fate of the party he founded, chaired, owned and governed was left to others.
[60] However, the affiliated Libertas Institute did emerge again in the Republic of Ireland when the Irish government launched its re-run of the Lisbon Treaty, despite its defeat the previous year.
Ganley stated that following a group conference in Rome in March 2009, (later postponed to 1 May 2009)[74] Libertas would publish a policy document or party manifesto.
[76] Instead, Libertas's core principles were displayed on its website[77] and reiterated at its convention,[76] namely accountability, transparency, democracy and rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.
Estonia Germany Ireland Malta Netherlands Poland Sweden United Kingdom Latvia Affiliate parties were not members of Libertas.eu but cooperated with it electorally under Libertas lists.
Libertas didn't manage to present electoral lists in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Romania and Sweden.