Parliament president to announce candidate for Catalan presidency on Monday

Parliament president, Roger Torrent, will announce the candidate he proposes be sworn in as Catalan president on Monday. Torrent today ended the traditional round of talks with the Catalan chamber’s party leaders to discuss who has the most support to become the next president. Torrent today met the leaders of the ERC, Together for Catalonia and Ciutadans parties, after sitting down yesterday with the leaders of Catalonia in Common, the Catalan Socialists, the CUP and the People’s Party.

With the round of talks now at an end, Carles Puigdemont is the most likely candidate to be sworn in as president, as he has the most support from the majority pro-independence bloc in Parliament. Yet, with Puigdemont in Brussels, it is not certain whether it will be possible for him to take office at a distance.

So far, the pro-independence ERC party has backed Puigdemont as president, but has not clarified whether it will end up voting for him in the investiture debate or not. Meanwhile, the other pro-independence party, CUP, says it will decide what to do in the investiture debate. All of the unionist parties are against Puigdemont being voted into office while he is in Brussels, while Catalonia in Common asked the Parliament president not to allow Puigdemont to be sworn in as president at a distance, since they consider it to be “unfeasible”.

JxCat to study “immunity” of MPs

Together for Catalonia is studying the "political and judicial" implications of any "immunity" that MPs may have. According to the Catalan Statute, MPs in the chamber "enjoy immunity" and cannot be arrested if they do not “commit a flagrant crime”. The Together for Catalonia MPs argued that all MPs, including those who are in Brussels, as well as those who are in prison, enjoy this “immunity”.  

In the meeting with Torrent, two Together for Catalonia leaders, Elsa Artadi and Eduard Pujol, said that they talked about the “duty to defend” and “protect” all MPs in Parliament. In addition, they stated that all MPs should be “treated” the same way and that they should have the “same rights”, referring to those MPs who are in Belgium, including Together for Catalonia’s candidate, and those in prison.

Yet they also pointed out that they did not discuss how to swear Puigdemont in as Catalan president from Belgium.  

Puigdemont’s proposal “ridiculous”, says Cs

For her part, the leader of the Ciutadans unionist party, Inés Arrimadas, accused Together for Catalonia of wanting to profit from MP’s parliamentary “privileges”, referring to the study into the immunity of MPs. "They like political privileges, while we are here to eliminate them," she stressed.

Arrimadas also accused Puigdemont of thinking that the Parliament is “at his service” and said that he cannot govern Catalonia from Brussels. She labelled Puigdemont’s proposal “ridiculous” and asked him to “see reason and stop denigrating the institution.” Still, the leader of Ciutadans pointed out that the final decision must be taken by the Parliament president and she asked him to “preserve” the institution.