"It is not just Hungary, Poland and Spain that put the rule of law at risk in Europe, but the double standards and lack of political courage in the European institutions themselves". This was the powerful accusation that Catalan MEP Clara Ponsatí today addressed to the European Parliament, in the presence of Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and Council president Charles Michel.
The pro-independence politician was taking part in the chamber's debate on the use of the EU budget as a lever to guarantee the rule of law in the Member States. Indeed, Ponsatí stated that she strongly supported the measure.
But her warning was that the measure could end up being "empty" if it was not applied bravely, looking at all countries in the EU. To illustrate the point, she didn't have to go any further than this week's news headlines.
"Member states like Spain know how to take the money and get away with abuses of human rights", said Ponsatí. "Spain has a delinquent Supreme Court that engages in politics and openly defies the European Court of Human Rights, but the EU is blind to it," said the Catalan MEP, before going into the details of the court's decision in the case affecting Basque politician Arnaldo Otegi and four others.
The MEP recalled that on Monday, Spain's Supreme Court announced that it would put EH Bildu leader Otegi on trial again, for the second time and for the same charges for which he has already served six years in prison, in response to the the Strasbourg court's 2018 judgement that he had not been given a fair trial.
"If Spain can behave like Turkey, it is because you, the Council, the Commission, allow it. Double standards in Brussels, your double standards are what are destroying the rule of law in Europe," she warned, directly addressing Von der Leyen and Michel.
EU failure to apply its own values
Ponsatí's reflection - assessing the budget agreement as a good step, but only part of a solution which must also include bold political action - followed a speech in the chamber from her JxCat party colleague Carles Puigdemont on Tuesday which also had some criticism for the EU's failure to apply its own values.
In a debate on the 25th anniversary of the 1995 Barcelona Declaration on cooperation in the Mediterranean, Puigdemont noted that the EU had "lost moral authority" by not addressing issues like the "fierce repression" of the Spanish state in Catalonia, while the "clear vision" expressed in 1995 for the future of the Euro-Mediterranean region had failed because the Union had "fallen behind on essential questions". "That failure is also our responsibility," he declared.
In the main image, MEP Clara Ponsatí in the European Parliament