It is surprising the extent to which the «free» press within the European Union, particularly in countries like Germany and Spain, is selective in reporting on certain issues or silent about them. As previously reported, the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov, in the presence of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell i Fontelles, had pointed out at a press conference on 5 Feb. 2021, that the European Union is silent on the illegal detention of political prisoners from Catalonia in Spanish prisons, correctly referring to final decisions of state courts in Belgium and Germany as well as the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (United Nations — Human Rights — Office of the High Commissioner: Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its 84th session).
The Polish government invokes a weighty precedent in Spain in support of its legal view that national law can take precedence over European law. Contrary to a decision of the European Court of Justice to the contrary, Spain kept the elected Catalan MEP Dr Oriol Junqueras in prison and prevented him from taking up his mandate as a Member of the European Parliament and representing his voters at the European level. The fact that, despite his election, he could not take part in the deliberations or votes of the European Parliament should, in a state governed by the rule of law, in itself render null and void all decisions taken without his participation. But the European Union remained silent and accepted Spain's imprisonment of a Member of the European Parliament in gross disregard of the European Court of Justice and European law, claiming the primacy of national law. What right is there now to deny Poland what was allowed and thus approved in the case of Spain? It is now bitterly avenged that the European Union looked the other way in the case of the conflict between Spain and Catalonia and tacitly tolerated the most massive human rights violations in Western Europe for decades, for which the Spanish state is responsible. Those who, like the European Commission, reproach Poland for what it allows Spain to do must accept the accusation of hypocritical double standards. Unless and until the European Union takes action against the human rights violations and breaches of law in Spain, it has no moral right to initiate any sanctions against Poland, which, like Spain, now claims the primacy of national constitutional law over European law.
Several times already, in the context of the news on this petition, reference has been made to a weighty book by the former Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Prof. Dr. Alfred de Zayas: Building a Just World Order, Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2021. In this important publication, the jurist internationally renowned in international law and former high-ranking United Nations official also addresses Spain's human rights violations and the Catalan independence movement (pp. 123-125 and 154-172). His verdict on Spain and the silence of the European Union is scathing:
«This means that there are political prisoners and political exiles in Europe, in breach of article 2 of the Treaty of Lisbon of the European Union. Such brazen suppression of the exercise of freedom of expression contravenes Spain's own Constitution, in particular Articles 10(2) and 96, which incorporate Spain's human rights treaty obligations into the Spanish legal order, including the right of self-determination of peoples, the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly and association.» (de Zayas 2021: 123).
And Alfred de Zayas also shows a path that the Catalan independence movement can take in a peaceful way to achieve the independence of the Catalan Republic:
«The acceptance by the international community that a refusal of the Spanish State to participate, urgently, in good faith and with a willingness to compromise, in a bilateral dialogue process should, in the current situation, open the possibility to the Catalan people to prioritize alternative ways for the peaceful and democratic exercise of their legitimate right of self-determination, in particular the holding of a binding referendum of self-determination under the direct supervision of the international community. In this connection, one may refer to the UN-organised and monitored referendum held in 1999 in Timor Leste, against the wishes but ultimately with the consent of the occupying power, Indonesia, which realised that it could no longer stop it.» (de Zayas 2021: 169).
European officials and politicians who remain silent on Spain's human rights violations and rights abuses have obviously learned nothing from the history of persecution of minorities under Nazism and Francoism. It is cheap to pretend in Sunday speeches that one would have behaved differently back then, but in the here and now of the 21st century to silently tolerate the oppression of a people and the political persecution of its representatives in the middle of Europe or even, as in the case of the European Parliament, to actively support it. One does not have to be a prophet to predict that this European Union will have no future if it does not remember its fundamental values, the rule of law and democracy, and finally puts a stop to the actions of the Spanish state which are contrary to human rights!