Catalan foreign minister Alfred Bosch, in an article published today by 14 European media outlets, writes that the "legitimacy of the European Parliament could be tested" on 2nd July, when the new legislature officially begins, if Catalan MEPs Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras and Toni Comín are not in attendance as "as legitimate and democratically-elected representatives".
There is currently ongoing controversy over the Parliament's decision to prevent Puigdemont and Comín from collecting their provisional accreditation as MEPs last week. Junqueras, meanwhile, is one of the pro-independence leaders whose trial is coming to a close in Spain's Supreme Court.
The article, translated into various languages, has been published in print and/or online by The Guardian (UK), Libération (France), La Repubblica (Italy), Le Soir (Belgium, in French), Neues Deutschland (Germany, paywall), Público (Portugal), The National (Scotland), HBL (Finland, in Swedish), ETC (Sweden), Fréttablaðið (Iceland), Público (Spain), DirektNO (Croatia), EU Observer (European) and Open Democracy (global).
"Catalonia has always been a committed and reliable partner in the construction of the European project," begins the minister. Drawing a contrast with Brexit in the UK, he says that "Catalonia has never given up its feeling of being European nor its conviction of being part of the European Union".
On the subject of Puigdemont, Junqueras and Comín, he argues that, "as democrats", Catalans are obliged to "demand that all those who have legitimately won seat[s] in the European parliament are allowed to represent their citizens and work to defend their vision of an inclusive, social and better Europe for the five years to come". "Depriving political rights to elected officials [sic] does not suit a modern European democracy".
He concludes that, if they are kept out of the Parliament, "Europe will not only have lost three active and pro-European members at [its] service, but it will have also lost another chance to show to the world that this is, indeed, a space of freedom, democracy, and fundamental rights".