Prison demands 'destroy hope' for dialogue, says EU-Catalonia Platform

The EU-Catalonia Dialogue Platform believes that the Spanish prosecutor's request to charge Catalan pro-independence leaders with 177 years in prison “has destroyed any hope that the socialist government might lead to any meaningful negotiation on the Catalan issue.”

This group of MEPs denounced in a statement on Friday “the lack of political response by the Spanish authorities” regarding this case. The platform has expressed its “deep concern about” the prosecutor's decision to pursue the most serious charges of rebellion. 

“If such sentences passed, this could set a dangerous precedent in Spain and in turn, in the European Union”, alerts the statement. For this reason, they call on European Institutions “to urgently reconsider” how they protect “civil and political rights” in this case. 

The platform denounces that these accusations are “false” because they have already been “refuted by the Belgian and German Courts” in its rejection of the European Arrest Warrant against former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and former ministers currently living abroad. “Catalan leaders have been accused of crimes they have not committed based on violence that has not existed”, MEPs defended. 

The EU-Catalonia Dialogue Platform is formed by MEPs from different political groups, like the vice-president of the Socialist group in the EU Parliament Tanja Fajon or former Foreign Affairs minister of Slovenia Ivo Vajgl.