Exiled president challenges State

The ex­iled pres­i­dent of the Cata­lan gov­ern­ment and JxCAT can­di­date for the Eu­ro­pean elec­tions, Car­les Puigde­mont, has opened a new legal bat­tle with the Span­ish state after an­nounc­ing that in the event of his being elected on May 26 he could re­turn to Cat­alo­nia thanks to the par­lia­men­tary im­mu­nity he would enjoy as a Mem­ber of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment.

How­ever, Puigde­mont’s de­c­la­ra­tion was roundly an­swered by the or­gans of the State, in­clud­ing the Cen­tral Elec­toral Board, which noted that to be a mem­ber of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment he would first have to ac­cept the Span­ish Con­sti­tu­tion in a face-to-face act in Madrid, and Puigde­mont would there­fore still not enjoy par­lia­men­tary im­mu­nity, an in­ter­pre­ta­tion echoed by the legal ser­vices of the Span­ish Con­gress.

In de­c­la­ra­tions to the radio sta­tion Rac1, Puigde­mont ar­gued that the mo­ment he was pro­claimed an elected MP he would al­ready ob­tain par­lia­men­tary im­mu­nity, a procla­ma­tion that would be de­ter­mined by the pub­li­ca­tion of the elec­toral re­sults in the of­fi­cial state bul­letin.

The po­lit­i­cal bat­tle of wills has given way to a new legal bat­tle, this time in the Eu­ro­pean set­ting, as any dis­pute will have to be set­tled by the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment based on a re­port of the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee that ver­i­fies the cre­den­tials of elected mem­bers.

Puigde­mont’s de­c­la­ra­tion was not well re­ceived by the other par­lia­men­tary groups and even the CUP dis­tanced it­self from the ex­iled pres­i­dent’s strat­egy, with party MP Na­talia Sànchez yes­ter­day warn­ing him that “if we use cer­tain promises in elec­toral logic we will not be doing the pro-in­de­pen­dence move­ment a favour by feed­ing ex­pec­ta­tions that can­not be ful­filled.”