As if Spanish justice hadn't been shaken up enough by the decision of the General Court of the European Union (EGC) to restore the parliamentary immunity of Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsati, in a decision as unusual as it is exceptional, since there is no precedent in the European Parliament, this Thursday a second bombshell of equally remarkable calibre fell in the middle of the Spanish capital's Plaza de la Villa de París. The Council of Europe's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, will present the Council's Parliamentary Assembly with a report calling on the Spanish authorities to release imprisoned members of the Catalan government, and abandon the attempts to extradite the exiled pro-independence politicians.
Neither of the stories is umimportant; on the contrary, they dismantle the judicial bulldozing which the Supreme Court has performed, they demonstrate the importance of having a political margin in which the monolithic discourse of the Spanish state can be resisted and they strip naked - yes, naked - all those who have uncritically bought into the false narrative of the coup d'etat, the rebellion, sedition and misuse of funds despite the price attached to this: the Catalan pro-independence leaders ending up in prison or exile. The unity of Spain has been defended beyond legality, and wings to fly have been given to repression, violence and political and economic persecution. People and families have been ruined, baseless reports from the Spanish police have been released and, in short, there has been no rest in the efforts to decapitate a democratic movement that has repeatedly won at the polls exactly what the deep state worked to avoid.
All this has been done without any shame. Imposing a narrative through coercion and threats. And today comes the report of the Council of Europe, whose rapporteur is, incidentally, a Socialist. And what it does is analyze the situations in Spain and Turkey, emphasizing that "the mere expression of pro-independence views must not be the object of criminal prosecution." And that the Spanish authorities must refrain from demanding that pro-independence politicians repudiate their political views in order to achieve a favourable prison regime or an opportunity for pardon. When the Council's committee voted on the matter, the report requesting the release of those imprisoned and the withdrawal of the European Arrest Warrants was passed by 21 votes in favour to 6 against.
The struggle at European level is now clearly decanting towards the pro-independence politicians. Despite the enormous effort of Spain's established press to hide this reality and give it minimal prominence, or not even report at all that Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí have recovered their immunity when a few months ago the matter merited banner headlines, it is all useless. Today this serves little purpose beyond making them look ridiculous. We now know for certain that the exiled politicians will never be extradited to Spain, that the Supreme Court has lost the battle for good, that European justice will correct the Supreme Court's decision and that there is not enough money to restore Spain's image in Europe. The thesis - that one that asserts that the independence movement has been subject to political persecution and that the Spanish judiciary has acted with a glaring bias - has been imposed.