The European Parliament voted on Tuesday in favor of lifting immunity from the former leader of Spain’s Catalonia region, Carles Puigdemont.
The European lawmakers also waived immunity for former Catalan health minister Toni Comin and former regional education minister Clara Ponsati.
The trio fled to Belgium in October 2017 along with other Catalan separatists. They are wanted by Spain after holding an independence referendum that the Spanish government said was illegal.
In 2019, Puigdemont, Comin and Ponsati won seats in the European Parliament. This gave them protection in their positions as members of the EU assembly.
But at the request of the Spanish judiciary, the parliament opened an inquiry into waiving their immunity. The parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee voted last month to recommend this.
MEP’s overwhelmingly supported lifting immunity
In the decision on Puigdemont, 400 legislators voted for the waiver of immunity, 248 were against and 45 abstained.
The motions against Comin and Ponsati were adopted by 404 votes to 247, the parliament said.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
A Roman province
The Romans had several provinces with Hispania in their names on the Iberian Peninsula. Modern Spain also encompasses such wide cultural diversity that the Spanish themselves speak of Las Espanas (The Spains). The country in its present form was never united under a single ruler until after the 1702-14 War of the Spanish Succession.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
A nation of regions
Spanish nationalism is strong in many regions, with former kingdoms such as Aragon largely content to be recognized as part of the Spanish nation-state. Asturias has its own language, but takes pride in its role as the birthplace of the Reconquista, or the taking back of Iberia from the Moors. Spanish nationalism was evident in recent years in Madrid in response to Catalonia’s referendum.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
Bloodied fingers
Catalonia has long battled for independence. Its flag, the Senyera, is very similar to that of Aragon, to which it once belonged. The design is fabled to represent four bloodied fingers of Count Wilfred the Hairy being passed over a gold shield. Catalans were fairly happy with their situation until a court struck down the region’s statute of autonomy in 2006 and support for independence grew.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
No great appetite
Valencianismo, or Valencian nationalism, sprang out of the Renaixenca, an early-19th-century rebirth of the Catalan language, of which Valencian is just one variant. However, nationalist sentiment is not widespread in the region, which is home to Spain’s Tomatina tomato-throwing festival. The Valencian Nationalist Bloc usually gets about 4 percent of the vote for the autonomous parliament.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
Other Catalan territories
The Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera — all speak variants of Catalan. Though there is a greater nationalist feeling on the islands than in Valencia, it is still more subdued than in Catalonia. Meanwhile, La Franja, a strip of Catalan-speaking land in Aragon, was split by the independence referendum, though most residents do not advocate self-determination for themselves.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
The Basque Country
Because of terror attacks by the ETA militant group, Basque separatists used to make the headlines far more often than Catalonia’s independence movement. Separatists consider the Basque Country in France and Spain and the region of Navarre to be one nation. About a third of people want full independence, but most want more autonomy. A referendum proposed in 2008 was ruled illegal.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
The Galician cause
Although it was the birthplace of the centralist dictator Francisco Franco, Galicia has the strongest tradition of separatism after Catalonia and the Basque Country. Even Spain’s mainstream national parties display a streak of Galicianism in the region. Perhaps as a result, starkly nationalist parties receive a lower share of the regional vote.
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Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain’s many nationalities
From caliphate to community
The Arabic name al-Andalus originally refers to the areas of the Iberian Peninsula that were under Moorish rule for 760 years. As Christians reconquered territories, the area known as Andalusia shrank southwards. Most Andalusians voted for autonomy after Franco died in 1975, but there is little appetite for full independence.
Author: Richard Connor
Votes shows Catalonia is a national issue
The vote sends “a message that the problems of Catalonia are to be resolved within Spain and not at a European level,” Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya told reporters in a statement.
Separatists plan to appeal
The three MEPs have already announced that they will take the case to the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice.
kmm/rt (AP, AFP, dpa)
