Speaker meets European Parliament vice presidents in Brussels

The Catalan parliament speaker, Roger Torrent, was in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday, where he held a meeting with a European Parliament vice president, Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GUE-NGL) and was set to hold another one with Heidi Hautala (Greens-EFA), also vice president of the European chamber. 

Also on Tuesday, he was expected to talk to several MEPs who are members of the EU-Catalonia Dialogue Platform, as well as the Committee of the Regions president, Karl-Heinz Lambertz.

In the afternoon he will take part in the conference 'Towards a digital democracy' in a European Parliament room.

Flemish chamber speaker: imprisonments "not normal"

On Monday, Torrent met his Flemish counterpart, Jan Peumans, who said it is "not normal" that pro-independence leaders are in jail.

 

"It is not normal that the people who want to exercise their political rights are the ones in prison, I don't understand it," said Peumans after the meeting.

Peumans' incident with Spanish foreign ministry

Peumans was involved in a controversy in October when Spain withdrew the diplomatic status of the Flemish delegate in Madrid after the Flemish speaker said that the detention of the political leaders "proves that the central government in Spain does not fulfil the criteria of a democratic and modern European Union."