The European Court of Justice has agreed to consider the appeal by Catalan pro-independence civil group the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) against the European Commission's rejection of an initiative seeking to apply article 7 of the EU Treaty to Spain, the ANC has stated in a press release.
Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty allows for the possibility of disciplining an EU member state, in this case Spain, which has violated basic EU values. The process may involve the suspension of the country's voting rights on the European Council.
The ANC had requested, through a European Citizen's Initiative (ECI), that Article 7 should be applied to Spain "for violating the political and civil rights of the Catalan people and, by extension, of national minorities and their representatives."
The Citizen's Initiative was co-presented by the ANC and the Catalan exile body Council for the Republic on May 7th this year, but on July 3rd the European Commission refused to accept it for consideration, a decision that led both Catalan independence organizations to present an appeal on September 3rd to the EU's highest court.
The ANC announced the development in a press release this Saturday after a meeting of its National Secretariat.