european parliament

Catalan MEPs from left wing pro-independence party ERC Josep Maria Terricabras and Jordi Solé, and Ramon Tremosa, representing the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT) sent a letter to the 751 members of the European Parliament condemning Monday’s sentence against former Catalan government figures over the 9-N symbolic vote on independence, which took place in Catalonia in 2014. They consider “disgraceful and anti-democratic” the sentencing to a two year-ban from holding public office for former Catalan President, Artur Mas and the 21-month and 18-month bans for former vice president Joana Ortega and former Catalan Minister for Education Irene Rigau for allowing the non-binding referendum to take place. The Catalan MEPs assured in their joint letter that the court’s decision “will not deter the Catalans' will to express their views at the ballot box”.

Two Catalan researchers, Gemma Galdon and Isabel Trillas were amongst the finalists at EU Prize for Women Innovators 2017, an initiative promoted by the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation together with the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality. Galdon is a policy analyst working on the social, ethical and legal impacts of data-intensive technologies while Trillas is full Professor at the Faculty of Biology at Universitat de Barcelona and developed a pesticide based on a natural microorganism to control crop diseases. The ceremony, held on Women’s International Day at the European Parliament, awarded four European researchers for their outstanding contribution. They were Michela Magas, Petra Wadström, Claudia Gärtner and Kristina Tsvetanova.

The European Union has a role to play in resolving the current stalemate in Catalonia, according to some of the MEPs that attended on Tuesday the Catalan President’s talk in the European Parliament. “This is a European issue, I have no doubt about that. Maybe some people are in denial”, said Social Democrat MEP from Portugal Ana Gomes. The Catalan request for a referendum on independence is “reasonable”, added the Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy, who was also in attendance at the conference. According to Renate Weber, a Liberal MEP from Romania, the issue should be solved through a democratic dialogue because, otherwise, “the international role will play a role”. The former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia and now MEP in Brussels, Ivo Vajgl, said that the idea of explaining the Catalan Government plans in the European Parliament was “excellent” because Europe needs information on the issue.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, urged the European Union to “be part of the solution” to the Catalan situation and engage in a conflict that has now become “a European problem”. In a packed room in the European Parliament on Tuesday evening, Puigdemont said that Catalonia will celebrate a referendum on independence this year even if the Spanish government refuses to acknowledge it. The Catalan president highlighted the judicial process against pro-independence politicians and the “intransigence” of the Spanish executive, which has so far refused all Catalan calls to discuss the issue of an independence referendum. “About 80% of Catalans are in favour of calling a referendum, regardless of what their vote would be”, said Puigdemont, adding that a vote has been “a constant request” by Catalonia in recent years. “The issue at stake is not independence but democracy”, he warned.

Catalonia is seeking an agreement with Spain to celebrate an independence referendum but if Madrid continues to refuse to negotiate, the vote will go ahead anyway in 2017. This is the message that the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, will send to the European Parliament in a conference on Tuesday evening that is expected to be attended by about 300 people, including MEPs, international journalists and diplomats. Puigdemont will be accompanied by his two most senior ministers: Vice President Oriol Junqueras and Minister of Foreign Affairs Raül Romeva, both former MEPs and both in charge of organising the referendum. The talk has caused a stir amongst Spanish unionist MEPs, who have urged their colleagues to avoid it. The leader of the Spanish People’s Party in the European Parliament, Esteban González Pons, wrote to all his Brussels colleagues saying that the referendum plans are “an unconstitutional act, which goes not only against Spain, but also against the deepest principles and values of the EU”. Puigdemont, said on Twitter that the so-called “dialogue operation” of the Spanish Government with Catalonia “has already arrived in Brussels”. In an ironic remark following González-Pons’ letter, the Catalan President regretted the Spanish People’s Party (PP) stance on the issue.

Catalan MEPs asked the new president of the European Parliament, the European People’s Party’s Antonio Tajani, to maintain his promise and make it possible for them to speak Catalan in the plenary. During the electoral campaign for the chamber presidency, Tajani said that he would use all his power to allow Catalan to be used in parliament “as soon as possible” if he receives a petition “from the national authorities”. In a letter written in this language, the Italian added that he would put “no obstacles” to introducing Catalan. His Catalan promise came after the socialist candidate, Gianni Pittella, the ECR candidate, Helga Stevens, and the Greens/EFA candidate, Jean Lambert, also promised to allow the use of Catalan in the European Parliament.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, the Vice President and Minister of Economy, Oriol Junqueras, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Raül Romeva, will visit Brussels on the 24th of January to defend the Government plans to hold an independence referendum in 2017, the CNA has learnt. Puigdemont and his two more senior ministers, both of them former MEPs, will defend in the European Parliament Catalonia’s seeking of an agreement with the Spanish government to hold a legally binding referendum. However, they will point out that Madrid has repeatedly ruled out any discussion on the issue, arguing that a vote on independence is legally impossible. The Catalan President, the Vice President and the Foreign Affairs Minister will stress that Catalonia will celebrate the referendum even if Spain continues to refuse to engage in negotiation.

The European Parliament approved on Tuesday with 456 votes in favour, 138 against and 104 abstentions a resolution on fundamental rights in the EU. The draft, written by the Slovak MEP of the European People's Party (EPP), József Nagy, includes a specific call for Spain to investigate Francoism crimes. The amendment states that it “essential that all Member States cooperate with national and international judicial investigations” in order to “ensure truth, justice and reparations for victims of crimes against humanity committed by totalitarian regimes in the EU”. Furthermore, it calls on the European Commission to make an “objective assessment of the situation” in “all” states “to promote the historical memory”. The text was promoted, among others, by MEPs from the Catalan left-wing pro-independence party (ERC), the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), and the Catalan Green-Socialist party (ICV). Currently in Catalonia there are 390 mass graves and the number of people who went missing during the Franco era and are still yet to be located totals 4,912 people.

Left wing pro-independence ERC MEP, Josep Maria Terricabras and Catalan European Democratic Party PDeCAT MEP, Ramon Tremosa have urged the EU to respond to the prosecution of the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. “Don’t let Spain undermine with all impunity our democratic and fundamental European rights”, stated Tremosa during Monday’s plenary session in the Euro chamber. The debate, held in Strasbourg, included the presence of EU Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourová, whom Tremosa called on not to be “indifferent to the actions of the Spanish State against Catalan democratic politicians”. Forcadell will be summonsed on Friday by the Spanish authorities for allegedly breaking Spain’s Constitution when allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote in the Catalan Chamber, last July. Forcadell could potentially be debarred from office and face a fine. 

The European Parliament passed this Thursday a text, promoted by the Greek MEP Kostas Chrysogonos, which explicitly reports the Castor case and the thousand earthquakes suffered by the locals in Valencia and Catalonia’s Ebro Delta. This business project, consisting of an offshore facility that had to store 1.3 billion cubic metres of reserve gas for Spain, failed after causing over 1,000 small earthquakes. The European Parliament called this Thursday to “include the victims of collateral damage linked to prospecting, surveys and the operation of offshore facilities” in the potential beneficiaries of future compensations. “It is very important that all those affected by offshore oil and gas operations, which are proved to be in detriment of the environment and of the activities of other persons be compensated”, Chrysogonos said to the Catalan News Agency, after slamming the “scandal” which is the Castor case.

The Catalan railway network has 126 “black spots” (14.3% of which are in in Tarragona, southern Catalonia), which represent “significant delays for traffic and a risk to safety”, reported the rail national secretary of the union UGT-Catalonia, José Bravo, to the Catalan News Agency. With this in mind, the workers in Tarragona of Adif, the Spanish public body in charge of the railway infrastructure, reported this Tuesday to the European Parliament “the lack of investment and personnel” of the company, which threatens a “strategic sector” and impedes providing a “safe and quality” service in Catalonia. “We share the annoyance of the Catalan Government regarding the Spanish Government’s breaches of its commitments”, said Bravo, who added that the Spanish Government of the Conservative People’s Party (PP) has only executed 4,2% of the 2013 agreement to invest €306 million in Catalonia, the “minimum spending necessary to provide a secure service”.

Spain’s use of the courts to block the pro-independence roadmap has been reported to the 751 members of the European Parliament by three Catalan MEPs. Josep Maria Terricabras and Ernest Maragall, from left wing pro-independence party (ERC), and Ramon Tremosa, representing the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT) have sent a letter to their colleagues in the Eurochamber lamenting what they describe as “democratic regression in Spain”. The letter criticised the summonsing of Catalan elected representatives, such as Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, for “allowing a parliamentary debate on independence”. It also laments that former Catalan MP and current PDeCat spokesman in the Spanish Parliament, Frances Homs, faces trial for co-organising the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014. 

The Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament requested the Spanish Government to review the voting system for residents abroad. It considers the current system to imply “difficulties” and believes that it “can be improved”. The vice-president of the committee, the Conservative People’s Party MEP from the Balearic Islands Rosa Estaràs, announced that the complaint of two young Spanish people that had difficulty voting in the general elections of 2011 and in the European elections of 2014 will continue to be investigated, while awaiting explanations from the Spanish Government. In addition, the European Parliament will send a letter to the Spanish Parliament and are confident that the case will be tackled by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the European Commission.

British Member of the European Parliament and leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, Syed Kamall, stated that a referendum on independence is “a good way” to resolve the situation in Catalonia. Furthermore, the politician believes that without it “problems will continue and never really be solved". In an interview with the Catalan News Agency, the politician said that “democracy is a good way of resolving these issues" and stressed that the right to decide is “a very good principle”. "I believe in self-determination and I was very proud when David Cameron offered the people of Scotland a referendumto vote on whether they wanted to be an independent nation or remain part of the United Kingdom”, the MEP stressed.  

Latvian MEPs from different parties have criticised the Spanish Government’s withdrawal of accreditation from the Honorary Counsellor of Latvia, Xavier Vinyals. “It's not serious (accusing Vinyals of having displayed a pro-independence flag)", "it is a very funny reason to expel a counsellor", remarked the Social Democrat Andrejs Mamikins to the Catalan News Agency. The Conservative Roberts Zile also criticised the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José-Manuel García Margallo, for his "wrong attitude, clearly inadequate for the democratic standards of the 21st century". "It's a horrible decision", lamented the Green Tatjana Ždanoka. The Latvian Government and Latvian MEPs from the European People’s Party (PPE) refused to comment on the decision of Margallo.