Major Catalan pro-independence civil society group Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) wants the European Parliament's mission on Pegasus to include Spain in its visits, after the start of inquiry trips to countries affected by the spying software. Among these countries are Israel, Poland, Hungary and the United States, but not Spain. This is why Dolors Feliu, ANC's president, expressed surprise and concern. In a letter addressed to the members of the commission of inquiry, Feliu criticized that the MEPs have not taken into consideration that "Catalangate is the biggest case of State espionage in the history of the European Union".
Feliu criticised the growing double standards of the European Union's institutions regarding the abusive practices of the Spanish state against the Catalan pro-independence movement, highlighting its duty to guarantee the rights of all European citizens, including Catalan citizens. Furthermore, she remarked that the indiscriminate and arbitrary surveillance of one of the EU governments of its citizenship cannot go unpunished, especially considering Spanish authorities have shown no will to undertake any sort of accountability and there has been a refusal by Spain’s biggest parties to create a parliamentary committee of inquiry on this topic.
Protecting Catalans from Pegasus
All this translates into the inaction of Spanish authorities, and Feliu highlighted that a neutral and extensive investigation of this massive espionage, ensuring the protection of Catalan's rights, who are part of the European citizenship, must be carried out by the European Union's institutions, in this case the European Parliament. The right to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to privacy and the rights of the Catalan nation as a whole are at stake, and therefore the reputation of the European Union as a project based on democracy and fundamental rights, she concluded.
Everything started with an investigation carried out by Citizen Lab (published by The New Yorker) published in mid-April, which revealed how the Spanish authorities had carried out scandalous surveillance actions with the Israeli spying software Pegasus since 2015. The operation, dubbed CatalanGate, affected at least 65 pro-independence leaders and activists, as well as their relatives, lawyers and journalists. It is a scandal denounced worldwide by organizations such as Amnesty International as a flagrant attack against fundamental rights and democratic principles.