Yesterday, the European justice sided for the first time in favor of Carles Puigdemont’s theses regarding the initial refusal of the European Parliament to assign him a seat after the 2019 elections, a controversial decision that was once endorsed by the Court General of the Union. The former president appealed against this sentence to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and in the coming months he could score an important, albeit late, moral victory if his judges follow the conclusions of the advocate general, who states that both he and Toni Comín should have been able to access their respective seats on July 1, 2019, at the beginning of the legislature.
The attorney general proposed yesterday the annulment of the sentence of the General Court, which considered in accordance with European law the refusal of the then president of the Parliament, Antonio Tajani, of the European People’s Party, to recognize Puigdemont and Comín as deputies and assign them a seat. The opinion of the general counsel is not binding but guides the final judgment of the CJEU, and in three out of four cases they agree.
Puigdemont and Comín were included in the list of elected deputies published by the Central Electoral Board (JEC) after the European elections in May 2019, but they did not appear in the final list sent days later to Brussels for not having met the set requirement in the Spanish legislation to swear to the Constitution. Tajani based his decision not to recognize them as deputies on this point. His successor, the social democrat David Sassoli, distanced himself from this position and, based on a ruling on the immunity of Oriol Junqueras, allowed them to take possession of his seat in December 2019.
According to the Advocate General of the EU, Maciej Szpunar, the General Court erred in its judgment for not having considered that “the letter of June 27, 2019 contained the definitive decision of the President of the European Parliament to case omitted from the proclamation of June 13, 2019”. Thus, Tajani “questioned the electoral results officially proclaimed” on June 13, 2019 and “chose to give effect to the subsequent notifications of the Spanish authorities, which did not faithfully and completely reflect those results”, he adds. “No precept” of Community law “authorizes a Member State to suspend the prerogatives of members of the European Parliament”, he concludes, assuming that they acquired such a condition when the list of electors was proclaimed.
