Tribune. Can you imagine a democracy in which parliamentarians, legitimately elected by the citizens, are deprived of their seats in parliament and face sentences of up to thirteen years in prison, for the sole reason that they have participated? from near or far to the organization of a referendum? Can one imagine a democracy in which parliamentarians, whose freedom is protected by fundamental rights and confirmed by a decision of the highest court of justice, find themselves arbitrarily detained by the police?
This democracy is Europe. These parliamentarians are the Catalan MEPs.
Oriol Junqueras, elected MEP in 2019, benefited from a leading judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU of 19 November 2019 which declares that he was indeed a member and had parliamentary immunity as soon as the results were announced. European elections. Oriol Junqueras spent several years in prison in Spain and is no longer an MEP due to the Spanish justice which sits on the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU.
Carles Puigdemont, elected MEP in 2019, was arrested in Sardinia on the grounds of the immediate extradition request by Spain and placed in police custody, before the Italian justice decided to suspend the proceedings and refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The seriousness of these attacks on the fundamental principles of democracy concerns all of us Europeans, ordinary citizens as well as elected national and European officials, attached to the values and principles enshrined in European treaties and national constitutions. When the Hungarian government muzzles the press and the judiciary, would one have the indecency to conclude that this is only a purely Hungarian affair?
Guilty attitude
When the Polish government attacks the fundamental rights of LGBT people (lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender), would anyone dare to say that this is only a purely Polish affair? But when the Spanish government and justice set on the Catalan elected officials, the French government shyly looks away and proclaims, with its hand on its heart, that this is only a purely Spanish affair.
The whole of Europe is moved by the decision of the Polish constitutional court to no longer recognize the primacy of European law over national law. To justify this position which attacks the heart of the European project, the Polish constitutional judges rely on the precedent of Spanish justice which flouts European law when it comes to the fundamental rights of Catalan European elected officials. What to answer them when, in fact, European leaders adopt a two-speed reading of European fundamental rights?
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