The MEP of Ciudadanos (Cs) and president of the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, Adrián Vázquez, has been “absolutely calm” about his actions in lifting the immunity of former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont by the European Parliament and he has defended himself against the recent order of the Court of Justice of the EU that restored his immunity.
In this order, the court pointed out that the “behavior” of Vázquez and the rapporteur on the request, the Bulgarian ultra-conservative Angel Dzhambazki, seemed to “demonstrate at first sight a position taken or a personal prejudice contrary to the deputies.”
“Since I have the position I hold, I have kept a profile as low as possible and as technical as possible because it is an institutional position,” Vázquez said at a breakfast organized by Diari de Barcelona on Tuesday. “In this type of case in which there is a judicial process underway, I try not to give my opinion,” added the MEP, who recalled that the order “does not go to the heart of the matter” and that it is neither a sentence nor does it mean that “the sentence goes one way or the other”.
“I am absolutely calm,” Vázquez insisted when asked about the comments regarding his role made in the car, because “the immunities processes of the Chamber are highly valued.” And he has been convinced that when the judges get to the bottom of the matter “they will see that the process was carried out with absolute transparency.” “The sentence, whatever it is, will be respected like all the decisions of any court,” he added.
Questioned as to whether Puigdemont and former ministers Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí would be arrested if they traveled to Spain, the orange MEP acknowledged that this possibility would not be ruled out but warned that it could not be ruled out that “as long as they had parliamentary activity they would have to be allowed free to exercise this parliamentary activity whether in Spain, Brussels or Strasbourg”.
In relation to the Pegasus case, the MEP has asked “to be very careful with the politicization of this type of issue, which is very serious and affects Spain and the European Union internally and externally. We must be careful. The trivialization and constant use of such serious things for a mere and spurious political use damages our democracy”. And regarding the sending of a parliamentary mission to Spain to investigate the use of this spy program, Vázquez has pointed out that “if there is a majority, which has not been the case, to send a mission to Spain” he would support it.
