EU parliament votes Catalan Socialist as VP, while Junts' MEP not assigned seat

The European Parliament voted in the Catalan Socialist, Javi López, as one of the 14 vice presidents of the chamber for the next two-and-half-years on Tuesday afternoon.

During the first vote, he obtained 377 votes, enough support to be able to be named, as the required stands at 333. His role could be renewed for the whole term, which lasts until 2029.

López was one of the five candidates proposed by the S&D, the Socialists group, to the position.

One of the decisions that these members of the chamber can decide on is, for example, the use of the Catalan language in the chamber, something that the renewed Maltese Roberta Metsola already said she would be open to debate.

The Catalan MEP has been in Brussels and Strasbourg for ten years. Despite the EPP winning across Spain, he was the candidate with the most support in the percentage of votes in the European Election 2024 in Catalonia.

Junts' MEP pending judicial decision

The elected pro-independence Junts' MEP, Toni Comín, has already acknowledged that he will be waiting on the European Court of Justice's decision on his MEP status.

"We will continue to work and do what I must do, which is work on politics from Brussels; it does not make any sense to be in Strasbourg without being able to enter the plenary," he said during a press conference on Monday.

"No one should abruptly take any conclusions," he said, "as justice needs time."

The same court will announce on September 26 if the EU chamber's decision in 2019 to reject his seat and former MEP Carles Puigdemont's seat was allowed.

Comín criticized Metsola because he considers her to have not followed the court's decision from 2019, when Esquerra Republicana MEP was considered an MEP from the moment of the election, despite not swearing in the Spanish constitution. This is the same situation Comín is currently in.

Vacant seat

Earlier in July, the EU chamber already left the seat vacant as the Spanish electoral board did not publish Comín's name as an officially elected MEP.

The parliament wants to await September's court's ruling before deciding.

However, the court could rule on Comín's appeal sooner than September 26, which would mean that the Catalan MEP could already be part of the parliament by mid-September.

Junqueras case

On December 19, 2019, the European Court of Justice confirmed Oriol Junqueras had immunity as an MEP-elect. The EU chamber then accepted his seat on January 6, 2020 with effect from July 2, 2019, but three days later, Spain's Supreme Court denied that he had immunity on the grounds that the ECJ decision applied to the time when he was in provisional detention awaiting sentencing. 

According to the judges, since he was sentenced to prison and disqualified from public office in October 2019, he no longer had the right to be MEP.

A day later, on January 10, 2020 the European Parliament stripped him of his MEP status with effect from January 3, when the Spanish electoral board first brought the issue up before the Supreme Court's final decision.

Junqueras then announced he would challenge the decision in the Court of Justice of the European Union, which dismissed his case in December 2020 and, after his final appeal, it was rejected again in December 2022.

Metsola wants the Parliament to distance from 'hate and anger'

Roberta Metsola (European People's Party) has been renewed as the EU parliament president on a voting that took place in Strasbourg this Tuesday to establish the parliament for the following mandate.

Metsola has been elected with 562 votes in favor of the 623 registered ones. The only other candidate was former Spanish equality minister Irene Montero presented by The Left. 

The re-elected president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola has stated that the parliament is a space 'against polarization' and has underlined the need to get away from positions that 'encourage hate and anger' in a context that is greatly defined by political confrontation. 

Metsola has also expressed her wish for people to regain 'enthusiasm for a community project' and get to build a 'more equal and fair shared space' in the EU. 

Some of the topics that Metsola has wanted to touch upon the matters she considers most important the EU has to work towards during her first speech as the new parliament president , such as ensuring European competitiveness, fighting climate change, and the gender wage gap.