On 9 March 2021, the European Parliament committed an unforgivable blunder before the eyes of the world when it lifted the parliamentary immunity of the Catalan president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, and his two ministers, Prof. Dr. Clara Ponsatí and Toni Comín, at Spain's request. The fact that the politicised and by no means independent judiciary of the Spanish state persecutes Catalan politicians and representatives of Catalan civil society for political reasons and thereby violates elementary human rights did not stop the majority of European parliamentarians from voting for the lifting of the immunity of their three colleagues. Who will still listen to and believe such a parliament when it pretends to take offence at human rights violations in states outside the European Union with hypocritical double standards? In the Russian Federation, in China, in Turkey and in many other countries, it will have been carefully observed that a clear parliamentary majority of the European Parliament — 404 (in the first vote 400) out of 693 votes cast — supports the Spanish state in its persecution of political dissidents. Vae Europae! Fuit dies ignominiae!
As is well known, only recently a Belgian court of second instance rejected the extradition of another Catalan minister in exile because, on the one hand, the Spanish court seeking the extradition did not have jurisdiction under Spanish law and, on the other hand, according to the Belgian judges, Spain was in serious breach of a European Directive — «DIRECTIVE (EU) 2016/343 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 9 March 2016 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings». For this reason, the three persecuted political dissidents from Catalonia should not have to fear extradition on the part of the Belgian judiciary. However, the fact that the European Parliament decided to suspend the parliamentary immunity of the three Catalans in the knowledge of the second-instance ruling of the Belgian court, which, moreover, also cited a relevant decision of the competent body of the United Nations in its reasoning, disappointed millions of people in the Catalan countries and demonstrated to the whole world the duplicity of the present European Parliament, which, as is well known, even accepts that one of its elected deputies, Dr. Oriol Junqueras, remains imprisoned in a Spanish prison and is thus prevented from exercising his mandate. Moreover, even before the vote on 9 March 2021, the procedure in the European Parliament suffered from clear procedural shortcomings that could lead to a finding of its nullity.
However, there were — besides 42 abstentions — also 247 Righteous Among the MEPs who will be remembered positively:
247 Righteous Among the Members of the European Parliament who cared about human rights, European ideals and the rule of law.
247 Righteous Among the Members of the European Parliament who did not bow to the dictates of Spain.
247 Righteous Among the Members of the European Parliament who will one day be memorialised in the Catalan Republic.
Jan Jambon (Prime Minister of Flanders) on the political prisoners in Spain and the Spanish justice system:
https://twitter.com/SanderLoones/status/1370109998685163520?s=20