European Commission says Germany acted 'according to rules' regarding Puigdemont

The European Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, has said that Germany acted “according to the rules” regarding Carles Puigdemont’s extradition process. Talking to the press in Brussels on Wednesday, she also ruled out including “rebellion” or “sedition” in the list of European arrest warrant crimes, which includes 32 offenses, such as ‘corruption.’

“I don’t have any requirements of this kind from member states, we had some debates with Spanish colleagues last year but at this moment we are not continuing this dialogue,” she said. Spain withdrew a European arrest warrant against Puigdemont in December over fears about discrepancies between Belgian and Spanish law.  

However, the European arrest warrant was reactivated last month and Puigdemont was detained by German police when returning to Belgium from Helsinki. The deposed Catalan president is now facing charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds, but the high court in Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) rejected the former offence, while asking for more information to evaluate the latter.

The commissioner also pointed out that the experts on her team “had not been alerted to any wrongful application of the arrest warrant,” in Germany. In fact, Jourová said the European arrest warrant system had “other problems”, such as the differences between prison conditions in different member states, which in some cases “do not comply with the necessary standards.”