The president of the Bundestag, the German parliament, and former German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has asked Spain to de-escalate the conflict with Catalonia and expressed his "full confidence" in his country's justice system, a justice system currently tasked with responding to Spain's request to extradite Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.
"The decision over Puigdemont seems everything but trivial. Now it's in the hands of the justice system, in which I have full confidence", said Schäuble, one of the leading members of chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party.
In response to requests that Puigdemont, facing trial in Spain for rebellion and misuse of public funds, held in Germany since Friday, be released, he said that his country has to follow the rules of the European Arrest Warrant.
Schäuble called for the Catalan conflict to be defused" and said that "we have to shape globalisation such that people don't feel lost". "For that reason", he continued, "the Spaniards would be well-advised to solve the problem in a way that the Catalans can live with".
Puigdemont has been in prison in Neumünster, in the north of Germany, since being taken into custody by German police on Sunday, shortly after crossing the Danish border.
The German lawyer higher by the president, Wolfgang Schomburg, had called in the media for Merkel's government to use the possibility they have in law to not authorise a potential extradition of Puigdemont. Schomburg believes that the German courts will reject the extradition request, but, if they don't, the government reportedly will not use its veto power.
After Puigdemont was taken into custody, German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert expressed their continued support for the Spanish government, describing the Catalan conflict as an internal matter for Spain to be resolved in accordance with the Spanish Constitution and laws.