THREE Catalan MEPs have lost their parliamentary immunity after a European court rejected a provisional ruling in June restoring the privilege.
The exiled trio – Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president and two of his former ministers, Clara Ponsati and Toni Comin – became list MEPs for Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) when Britain left the EU.
They were stripped of their parliamentary privilege last March after a majority of MEPs voted for the move, but this was reversed by a provisional Court of Justice ruling in June.
Spain had chased the trio all over Europe after issuing arrest warrants for them for their part in the 2017 Catalan indyref and subsequent declaration of independence.
According to the Luxembourg court, they retain parliamentary protection to allow them to go to sessions of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, but their immunity was rejected because it believed they had not “proven with a sufficient degree of probability” that they could be arrested.
The rejection comes as after the MEPs filed a lawsuit against the European Parliament for suspending their immunity in March.
They are alleging irregularities when Spain’s Supreme Court sought to reactivate their arrest warrants.
In a tweet however, Puigdemont called on people to “read the decision of the General European Court in-depth”, which he said confirmed the suspension of the warrants.
Puigdemont said in March: “We’ve lost our immunity but the European Parliament has lost much more. It’s clearly political persecution.”
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