For the Basques, a valid paradigm is what is happening in the conflict between Catalonia and Spain. This is the so-called Operation Domino, which I find even more complex, according to the sources. War is unleashed in three scenarios: In Catalonia, Spain and Europe. We have to look at those three, to guess the direction of the moves and guess who can be the winner of them.

The situation created after the last European elections has placed Catalonia and Spain on the agenda of the European Union. Reason: The measures taken by the Spanish State against the elected MEPs Carles Puigdemont, Antoni Comín and Oriol Junqueras and, on the contrary, the institutional, legal and political initiatives taken by these three MEPs.

I say that the cases and circumstances of the three are different. Mr Junqueras, who is facing this situation from prison, must ask the President of the European Parliament to defend immunity when he is appointed to do so. It is a road that I know myself, because five or six years ago I had to do the same; the result of that road has two conditions: To find in the European Parliament a president other than the former, Antonio Tajan, and on the other hand, that the Spanish State is prepared to accept the decision, leaving those who have been imprisoned to occupy their parliamentary seat free. In the hands of the Spanish State, in short.

The case of Puigdemont and Comin, on the contrary, is very different, since both are not in the same line in the hands of the Spaniards. In fact, the Spanish State has gone too far in its attempt to pass the sieve of internal legislation, claiming that in Madrid they have lost a Euro-Parliamentary seat if it does not comply with the Spanish constitution. This is not in accordance with the main rules in force in the European Union. In fact, the Lisbon Treaty, which has been in force since 2009, obliging the Spanish State itself, in its Article 6, gives entry to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the V Charter of the Charter which regulates these cases. The Title, for its part, designates the Court of Justice of the European Union as responsible for the judgment given in such cases. In this regard, the Spanish State is safe from the decisions taken. It must be borne in mind that in all the matters that have so far been resolved in the European courts, outside Spain, the Catalans have achieved victory over the Spaniards.

In any case, the main dimension of this complex conflict is not legal, but political. Because what is at stake is not the seat of the three Catalan MEPs, who are at stake. What is at stake is whether the Catalan Republic can make the way through Europe, unlike Spain, until it reaches an independent, autonomous Republic. There is the real strategic competition, and a reflection of this in Catalonia itself between three different routes: one, that of Puigdemont, for implementing an independence strategy in favor of the Republic both in Catalonia and in Europe; the second, that of Junqueras, for negotiating a solution with a hypothetical progressive Spanish government; the third, that of Artur Mas resurrected, which appears closer to the second than demont. We Basques are not in a position to be mere observers of this conflict, because our future is also, to a large extent, at stake in this struggle. It is not a question of betting, it is a question of decision.