The European Parliament confirmed on Tuesday what was expected of the meeting of the Council of Ministers. Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí were put to the vote last Monday in the afternoon of the request, and this Tuesday the House has reported that they have approved the request. The vote was taken with 400 votes in favour, 248 against and 45 abstentions. As MEPs, the three politicians had their requests for extradition frozen, but the result of the vote on Monday will allow Spain to reactivate them. Puigdemont, comin and Ponsa will not cease to be MEPs. The President of the House, David Sassoli, must inform Spain as soon as possible of the outcome, but also Belgium and Scotland, to whom it is appropriate to analyse the case of Ponsatí, who should respond to possible extradition orders.

More than in the overall result of the vote, the three independence politicians had set the number of votes against the request. It was known that around a hundred parliamentarians would oppose it, as the European Green Party – 73 MEPs – and the European United Left GUE/NGL – Nordic Green Left – 39 MEPs had said that they would do so. They were against the PPE, the European People’s Party, the European Socialist Party, and the Liberals of the Europe Berritzen Group, among others. Of these three groups, 459 are MEPs. The final result shows, however, that within the groups that from the outset were in favour of the elimination of immunity there have also been different positions.

That was the main hope of the independentists, because that could increase the vote against the elimination of immunity and delegitimize the global outcome. The vote was held in secret, and it was considered that it could increase the likelihood of different votes in the same group. This was partly the case in the vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament. Fifteen votes in favour, eight against and two abstentions, which means that more than one of the Members from the three main parliamentary groups failed to fulfil the criterion of their group.

Notice of appeal, followed

Puigdemont has appeared in Parliament shortly after the outcome was known and has ratified what has already been repeated on several occasions: That the case for the request will be referred to the European Court of Justice. ‘The only way to recover from the pain that has been caused to European democracy on political grounds is by resorting to Luxembourg’, he stressed. The Criminal Chamber of the National Court has confirmed that the appeal is being prepared.

They request the annulment of the request on the grounds that their procedure has been full of errors and irregularities. They have put as arguments the bias of the chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs, the leaks made by the members of that committee, and the errors in the accusation of former counsellor Clara Ponsatí, whom they initially accused of mistreatment of public money, despite the fact that the Spanish Supreme Court only wants to judge for a crime of sedition. The lawyers in Luxembourg will also call for measures to protect Puigdemont, Comin and Ponsatí as they resolve this matter, so that they may be suspended if extradition requests are made.

Puigdemont has also admitted that he is also aware of what the judge of the Spanish Supreme Court, Pablo Llarena, is going to do, asking for forgiveness. In fact, Llarena can take a step further before formulating his requests for Euroorder, so the CNMV does not rule out estimates. The judge intends to submit a request for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice in order to clarify the criteria followed for the acceptance or rejection of Euroorders.

The Belgian Justice rejected last summer the Supreme’s request to extradite former Catalan counsellor Lluís Puig, and Llarena wants to question the reasons that led to this so that the case of the three politicians who have now lost immunity is not repeated. If the judge asks this question to the European Court of Justice, requests for Euroorder would remain on paper until the Court replies. The three politicians would remain in an unprecedented situation: they would be lost, but they could not be repatriated to Spain.

Independence leaders’ lawyer Gonzalo Boye said last Saturday in an interview with Nacional Digital that Llarena’s movement is “risky” in Spain. ‘European justice is not going to give you reason, because it is not. Europe has decided and closed this issue. Where there is a risk of violation of fundamental rights, the State which is to implement the Euroorders, in this case Belgium, is obliged not to implement them’. Boye explained that the decisions of the Belgian courts on independence leaders are based on the criteria of the European Court of Justice, as opposed to what was suggested by the Supreme: ‘The order of the facts has been different: first, the European Supreme Court has talked about many cases and, on that case law, has done what the Belgian Justice has done’.

The Government of Spain, divided into two

The Foreign Minister, Arancha González Laya, was one of the first to speak on the request for a waiver and applauded the result of the vote. In its view, the European Parliament has shown its support for Spanish justice and has sent a clear message: ‘The problems of Catalonia are solved in Spain’. He has also argued that MEPs who have breached Spanish law should be brought to justice, and he has stressed that the result of the vote on Monday demonstrates this, among other things.

In the same vein, the parliamentary spokesman for the PSOE in Congress, Adriana Lastra, has spoken. ‘We think it is right that the European Parliament should allow the courts to do their job, which is ultimately a request’, he said. Asked by the media about the party to which his party has allied in the government, Lastra said that he does not understand the action of Un Podemos. ‘They are going to have to give the explanations,’ he stressed.

For her part, the UN spokeswoman Podemos in Congress, Aina Vidal, has reiterated the stance taken by her party in the vote on Monday. He said that the plea is "a theatre" to continue to prosecute the Catalan conflict and has called for dialogue between the PSOE and Junts Per Catalunya.

On the other side of the dialogue table, ERC is currently supporting Esquerra Republicana and also the government in Madrid. ERC spokesman for Congress, Gabriel Rufián, has threatened to withdraw this support on the grounds that the Spanish Government has raised the decision of the request. “If they continue to do so, they will celebrate it in their own house and not in the Moncloa,” he warned.