A EUROPEAN Parliament committee has voted to remove the parliamentary immunity from three Catalan MEPs – former president Carles Puigdemont and his former ministers Clara Ponsati and Toni Comin.
The advisory vote in the Legal Affairs Committee saw 15 votes in favour of a leaked report recommending the move, eight against and two abstentions.
A final decision will be taken by the Parliament at a plenary session next month.
The report – written by ultra-conservative Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki and leaked last week – advised removing the privilege.
However, the result was not unexpected after the Spanish Socialists yesterday outlined their intention to vote in favour of waiving their immunity.
They joined the three main blocs which hold a majority in the committee – conservatives, social democrats and liberals.
The trio’s party Together for Catalonia (JxCat) criticised the “breach of confidentiality” over the report, which saw Puigdemont’s legal team announce last week that they would file a complaint about the leak with the Parliament’s president David Sassoli.
They also threatened to take the procedure to the European Court of Justice should their immunity be withdrawn, and allege “formal errors” in the entire process.
Spanish MEP Adrian Vazquez, the committee president, said the report’s leak could result in “sanctions” against the person responsible.
Puigdemont, Ponsati and Comin are wanted by Spain for their part in the ill-fated 2017 independence referendum, when they fled before they could be arrested.
Many of their former allies have since been jailed for terms of up to 13 years.
Ponsati, a St Andrews University academic, fought off a Spanish extradition attempt from Scotland, and Belgium rejected European arrest warrants for Puigdemont and Comin, who became MEPs more than a year ago.
Ponsati took her seat later after being elected to the Catalan list.
After their election to the European Parliament, the trio were granted immunity from prosecution as one of the perks of the job and Spain’s extradition requests were therefore frozen.
However, the Spanish authorities have doggedly pursued their case calling for the privilege to be revoked so the extradition process can continue.
The Catalans and their lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, attended a private hearing at the Legal Affairs Committee last month – a year after the Spanish Supreme Court’s request – arguing against its motion to revoke immunity.
While they attended yesterday’s hearing neither was allowed to lodge any further arguments or evidence.
Even if the politicians are stripped of their privilege, they will retain their status as MEPs and can only be barred from office if there is a successful prosecution against them.
They have said they intend to appeal against the committee decision, in case it is confirmed at the full Parliament meeting. Should their appeal fail, it will then be up to the Belgian courts to rule on the European arrest warrant issued by Spain.
However, even this does not guarantee their automatic extradition, as demonstrated by the case of former Catalan culture minister, Lluis Puig.
Last month the appeal court in Brussels again rejected his extradition after an earlier court ruled the Spanish Supreme Court was not a competent body for his trial.
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