Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has met this Tuesday with some 20 MEPs of the EU-Catalonia dialogue platform, created in Brussels last week to encourage European intervention in the situation in Catalonia. According to several of the MEPs present at the event, they dined together near the European Parliament and discussed recent developments, including the Spanish Supreme Court revoking its European Arrest Warrants against Puigdemont and the ministers with him.
"It was important to have this dinner", French MEP Marie-Pierre Vieu, of GUE-NGL (European United Left–Nordic Green Left), told ACN (Catalan News Agency), adding that the MEPs see everything that has happened in Catalonia as "extremely worrying".
At the dinner were "many members with a plurality of opinions", said Vieu, listing "liberals, social democrats and greens", as well as representatives of her own group. According to Vieu, they've received the "impression" that, at least today, "the Spanish government is backing down" in its legal pressure on independence supporters, following "denials of democracy" and "imprisonments" which have no place in the EU.
"As an MEP, pressure is needed for there to be public debate until [election day] 21st December", said Vieu, who showed her support for Catalonia "continuing to be European". According to the MEP, the message they have received is that Catalonia wants to develop and feels trapped in the current Spain. "I'm French and shouldn't enter the debate" over independence, she said, nonetheless arguing that it's is necessary to respect "freedom, end with the political prisoners and take into account the right to self-determination".
Another of the MEPs who took part in the dinner, Flemish Mark Demesmaeker from ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists), tweeted that Puigdemont said that the "solidarity and understanding of [the] Flemish people opening their homes" to the Catalans taking part in this week's demonstration in Brussels is in "stark contrast" to the "ignorance and distance of the EU elite".
Irish MEP Matt Carthy, who also attended the meeting, said he was "really proud" of having seen Puigdemont the same day that the Spanish Supreme Court revoked its European Arrest Warrant. "Continued solidarity to the people of #Catalonia & their elected representatives!" he tweeted.