Puigdemont refrains from attending Strasbourg plenary to avoid potential arrest

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, currently an MEP for Junts, will not attend the EU Parliament plenary sessions this week in Strasbourg.

This comes following last week's European General Court (EGC) ruling stripping him of parliamentary immunity, exposing him to a potential arrest in France and subsequent extradition to Spain where he faces charges for holding the 2017 independence referendum.

Junts MEP Toni Comín, who, like Puigdemont, has been living in Belgium since late 2017 to evade prosecution, also decided against attending the plenary. 

The former president took to social media on Monday to announce his decision, complaining of EU Parliament president Roberta Metsola's "ambiguous" response to their questions regarding the EGC ruling, which can still be appealed. 

"We expected an assertive response from Parliament about our immunity upon displacement," the politician wrote on Twitter. "But Parliament does not guarantee that this ambiguity will not be used to carry out an arrest as was the case in Alghero, which could entail transferring of the extradition process to France."

According to Puigdemont, who had initially stated he would attend the plenary, Metsola only informed them "the Eurochamber will take all measures available to defend any immunity to which they may be entitled at that time."

This statement, he argued, is unclear, "probably because it is difficult to draw a clear conclusion from the sentence."

EU Parliament sources the Catalan News Agency spoke with defended Metsola's response and stated it was impossible to foresee how the authorities of a member state would act, pointing out that there is not currently an active arrest warrant out against the Junts MEPs. 

Unlike her fellow party mates, MEP Clara Ponsatí is set to travel to Strasbourg this week. Although she too lost her parliamentary immunity in last week's ruling, she faces the lesser, non-imprisonable offense of disobedience, and therefore cannot be extradited. 

Ponsatí was briefly detained upon her surprise return to Catalonia last March and failed to appear in court a month later, prompting Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena to issue a national arrest warrant for her.