The European Parliament is expected to withdraw the immunity of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and two fellow MEPs next week, allowing proceedings to extradite them to Spain to resume.

Last month, the parliament’s committee on legal affairs voted to recommend that the immunity of Puigdemont and his colleagues, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, be lifted. Although that decision is not binding, it is expected to lead to the waiver being approved when the chamber votes on Monday.

This is the latest episode in a complex and drawn-out legal wrangle, which began after the three politicians fled Spain in 2017, following a failed attempt by Catalonia to secede, led by Puigdemont’s government. The former Catalan president has been based mainly in Waterloo, Belgium, since then. Comín is also living in Belgium as is Ponsatí, who also lived in Scotland. Both were ministers under Puigdemont.

The Spanish judiciary has been trying to extradite the trio so that they can go on trial for sedition – and in Puigdemont and Comín’s cases, misuse of public funds – for their roles in the 2017 independence bid. Nine Catalan independence leaders are currently serving prison terms for sedition.

Since becoming MEPs in 2019, extradition procedures against all three have been suspended. The removal of their immunity would see the process resume, although they could attempt to appeal before the European Court of Justice.

Persecution claim

The Catalan MEPs argue that the immunity waiver request should be rejected because it contains procedural irregularities and is based on unsubstantiated charges. They also allege that the entire case is driven by political persecution on the part of the Spanish authorities, accusing the judiciary – in this case the supreme court – of ideological bias.

“We’re not asking MEPs to take sides on how to resolve the Catalan issue,” Ponsatí told The Irish Times. “We’re just asking them to understand that the Spanish judge who is prosecuting us is doing so for political reasons.”

If, as expected, the vote goes against the three Catalan MEPs, Ponsatí warns that this would mean the parliament is “taking the Spanish authoritarian approach to the conflict, which will have negative consequences”.

Esteban González Pons, a Spanish MEP for the European People’s Party, which is expected to vote to lift the immunity, pointed out that his country’s judiciary wants to try them for actions that took place more than a year before they became MEPs. Therefore, their parliamentary status, he says, should not be protected. He also addressed the issue of alleged persecution.

“Puigdemont’s party [Together for Catalonia] has formed part of the Catalan government, it took part in the recent elections, it will probably form part of the next Catalan government,” he told The Irish Times. “You can’t talk about political persecution when the party which the person in question belongs to is governing Catalonia.”

He added: “If the European Parliament decided that in Spain the rule of law does not work, then it would have to proceed to apply article seven to Spain and suspend its European funds.” He does not expect that to happen.

Symbolic victory

If the immunity of Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí is lifted then it will be a symbolic victory for the Spanish judiciary. However, a recent precedent suggests that efforts to extradite them are still likely to come to nothing. In January, the Belgian court of appeal ruled against allowing Lluís Puig, a former Catalan minister, to face trial in Spain for misuse of public funds. It found that the Spanish supreme court was not competent to request the international warrant for his arrest.

Puigdemont responded to that news by tweeting that it was “game over” for Spanish attempts to bring him and his colleagues to trial.

The upcoming vote could also have political repercussions in Spain, where the Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez has needed the support of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left in parliament. If, as many expect, Spain’s Socialist MEPs vote to lift the immunity of the Catalan politicians, that could add a new obstacle to stuttering negotiations between Madrid and the Catalan government over the territorial issue.

A first phone call on Friday clinched the first trade breakthrough to start rebuilding transatlantic relations between the United States and the European Union in the wake of the Trump presidency.

After US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke, both sides decided to suspend tariffs used in the long-standing Airbus-Boeing dispute for the next four months.

Von der Leyen said that “as a symbol of this fresh start, President Biden and I agreed to suspend all our tariffs imposed in the context of the Airbus-Boeing disputes, both on aircraft and non-aircraft products, for an initial period of four months.”

The discussion hardly covered all outstanding issues that were left to fester ever more under the four-year presidency of former President Donald Trump, but the EU gladly took whatever it could get from the first personal exchange between the Biden and von der Leyen.

Von der Leyen called it “a very positive signal for our economic cooperation in the years to come”.

“This is excellent news for businesses and industries on both sides of the Atlantic,” she said.

With the initiative to ease the aircraft fight that long weighed on trade relations, the European Union – a 27-nation bloc whose executive branch is the European Commission – is seeking to rekindle the spirit of cooperation between Washington and Europe that has long defined global diplomacy.

Von der Leyen hopes it is the first indication that both the US and Europe will stand shoulder to shoulder like they have so often over the past century to face global challenges.

Von der Leyen said she invited Biden to a global health summit in Rome on May 21 to streamline the fight against COVID-19, the common enemy that has killed over a million people in the EU and US combined. She hopes the commonality would extend to foreign policy issues as well, where both could cooperate better to face the rising power of China.

On Friday though, it was trade that mattered and the suspension will give a four-month window to address the more fundamental issues. In the aircraft dispute, the US was allowed to impose tariffs on $7.5bn of EU exports to the US and as a result of the deal, EU tariffs will be suspended on $4bn of US exports.

The tariff suspension will affect everyone from French winemakers to German cookie bakers in Europe and US spirits producers, among many others.

“Lifting this tariff burden will support the recovery of restaurants, bars and small craft distilleries across that country that were forced to shut down their businesses during the pandemic,” the US Distilled Spirits Council said.

Not that both sides can now drink to the cessation of trade hostilities.

Still outstanding, for example are the tariffs that Trump slapped on EU steel and aluminium, which enraged Europeans and other allies by calling their metals a threat to US national security. The so-called Article 232 proceeding both hurts European producers and raises the cost of steel for US companies. Europe retaliated by raising tariffs on US-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans.

And Friday’s mellow phone call has not dented Europe’s push for digital taxes on US tech behemoths like Google and Amazon.

The breakthrough in the aircraft dispute, heading into its 17th year, should not be underestimated, though.

Only last November, the EU imposed tariffs on up to $4bn worth of US goods and services over illegal aid for planemaker Boeing, even though the 27 EU nations already held out hope relations would improve under Biden.

The move came only a few weeks after international arbitrators gave the EU the green light for such punitive action. The World Trade Organization (WTO) had deemed illegal some US support for Boeing — which is a bitter rival of Europe’s Airbus — and said the EU could make up for that with a limited amount of penalties on US trade.

The WTO had ruled that Boeing was given an unfair edge over Airbus by tax breaks from Washington state, where Boeing once had its headquarters. But after the WTO decision, the state repealed the tax breaks, making the EU’s complaint obsolete in the view of US officials.

BEIRUT, March 5 (Xinhua) — The European Union, via the Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian crisis, adopted a 130 million euros (155 million U.S. dollars) assistance package to support Syrian refugees and local communities in Jordan and Lebanon, a statement by the EU office in Lebanon said on Friday.

The package aims to support Syrian refugees in key areas such as social protection, healthcare services or waste management, according to the statement.

For Lebanon, the funds will also help to alleviate the consequences of the Beirut port’s blasts, which affected both Syrian refugees and Lebanese people.

Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that the EU will continue to do all it can to support the Syrian people, civil society, refugees and their host communities in neighboring countries.

He also noted that the EU will host the fifth Brussels Conference on “Supporting the future of Syria and the region” on March 29-30 to reaffirm international support for the UN efforts for a negotiated political solution to the Syrian conflict.

Brussels [Belgium], March 6 (ANI): The United States and the European Union agreed to temporarily suspend tariffs levied on billions of dollars of each others’ aircraft, wine, food and other products for a four-month period.

According to The New York Times, US President Joe Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, agreed in a phone call on Friday to suspend all tariffs imposed in the dispute over subsidies given to Boeing and Airbus for “an initial period of four months,” von der Leyen said in a statement.

The suspension allows both sides to focus on resolving this long-running dispute. It provides an important boost to EU exporters since the U.S. had been authorised to raise tariffs on $7.5 billion of EU exports to the U.S. Similarly, EU tariffs will be suspended on some $4 billion worth of U.S. exports into the EU, according to the European Commission.

“President Biden and I agreed to suspend all our tariffs imposed in the context of the Airbus-Boeing disputes, both on aircraft and non-aircraft products, for an initial period of 4 months,” she said.

“We both committed to focusing on resolving our aircraft disputes, based on the work our respective trade representatives. This is excellent news for businesses and industries on both sides of the Atlantic, and a very positive signal for our economic cooperation in the years to come,” Von der Leyen added.

According to a White House statement, Biden “underscored his support for the European Union and his commitment to repair and revitalize the U.S.-EU partnership.””Noting our shared values and the world’s largest trade and investment relationship, the leaders agreed to suspend the tariffs related to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Aircraft disputes for four months and to work toward resolving these long-running disputes at the WTO,” The White House said.

NYT further reported that The World Trade Organization had authorized both the United States and Europe to impose tariffs on each other as part of two parallel disputes, which began almost two decades ago, over subsidies the governments have given to Airbus and Boeing. The EU had imposed tariffs on roughly $4 billion of American products, while the United States levied tariffs on $7.5 billion of European goods.

Former President Donald Trump took a “more adversarial and aggressive stance” toward the bloc. He accused it of cheating the United States on trade and imposed tariffs on European metals, aircraft and other products. Trump also threatened further tariffs against European automakers.

The Biden administration has said it would restore ties with the E.U., formerly a close ally, as it seeks to form coalitions to take on bigger global problems, like China’s unfair trade practices. The US has committed to pressing Europe for a settlement on the aircraft dispute, as well as other continuing trade spats over metals, digital service taxes and other issues, according to NYT.

“Finally, we are emerging from the trade war between the United States and Europe, which created only losers,” Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said on Twitter adding that a burden would be lifted for French winegrowers, whose sales have been pummeled by steep retaliatory tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on imports to the United States.

In a joint statement with the European Union, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said the suspension would take effect “as soon as the internal procedures on both sides are completed” and that the agreement signaled “the determination of both sides to embark on a fresh start in the relationship.” (ANI)