The European Parliament’s commission of inquiry into the use of Pegasus has finished its mission in Spain regretting that it has not been able to meet with Pedro Sánchez and some of his ministers and complaining about the lack of transparency and information on the part of the Spanish authorities. However, he has done it without fuss. In fact, the president of the delegation of the European Parliament has approved the deal and has rejected that the Government boycott the mission’s agenda -as it has recriminated the independence movement- or that it used Vox’s motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez as a planned excuse . What’s more, he was grateful that the commission was able to meet with the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pascual Navarro: “Countries like Hungary and Poland rejected any meeting with members of their governments.”
The day of this Wednesday has served mainly so that the European mission could be seen in the Madrid delegation of the European Parliament with three victims of espionage of the 18 recognized as independentistas in May by the CNI, or of the 65 that Citizen Lab assures that there were under the Catalangate. The three appearances, from ERC: Pere Aragonès, Meritxell Serret and Ernest Maragall.
The president of the Generalitat has demanded that the commission investigate “in depth” the espionage, given, as he explained, the indolence shown by the Spanish authorities to do so. Serret has denounced that she was spied on while residing in Belgium.
The majority of popular Europeans, socialists and Renew Europe – a group where Cs is – imposed the criteria that those appearing were institutional charges. Maragall was the exception due to his status as a former MEP.
Even so, in the press conference offered by the president of the commission, Jerone Lenaers, and the rapporteur, Sophie in ‘t Veld, formulated two ideas that surely sounded good to the ears of the independentistas. The first, from Lenaers: “Why are changes in the legislation being proposed and were there substitutions in the CNI if the actions of the State Security Forces were legitimate? If we had been able to meet with the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, we could have clarified”.
The second consideration was raised by the liberal In ‘t Veld: “Ideas, however crazy they may seem, can never be the object of national security.” Heavenly music for ERC, Junts and the CUP.
There was some other consideration. “In Spain we have seen that the neutrality of Citizen Lab is questioned. All the accusations of bias have been duly refuted. [Citizen Lab] acts with academic criteria,” argued Lenaers and In ‘t Veld.
From the first agenda that was raised in the commission to the one finally executed, there is an abyss. First, meetings with all kinds of pro-independence agents were proposed, from representatives of the ANC and Òmnium spied on, to lawyers from the pro-sovereignty milieu. Or Supreme Court judges and government ministers, in addition to Pedro Sánchez. Everything fell with the festivity on Monday in Madrid and the motion of no confidence this Tuesday in the background. Even the meeting confirmed until hours before with the Defense commission of the Congress has finally been annulled, with the ten members of the European Pegasus commission following the motion of censure in a room of the Lower House for two hours. “They received us in the room […]. The ham was very good, but unfortunately the parliamentary debate, which provided for a recess at one o’clock, has been delayed,” said Lenaers in this regard.
Finally, the European mission has also referred to the espionage cases that are being investigated in the National Court against Pedro Sánchez, Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Margarita Robles. The MEPs assured that they have no evidence, but that all indications point to Morocco as responsible for listening to members of the Spanish Government.
