MEP Clara Ponsatí has participated in her first plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg this Monday. The Catalan minister in exile occupies seat number 781, to the left of fellow Catalan MEP Carles Puigdemont, and her first intervention in the chamber is scheduled for Tuesday.
As she entered the Strasbourg parliament she said she would work "intensely" for the Catalan independence cause from her position as an MEP. It was, she said, a "great joy" to join Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín as a member of the European Parliament. "We will work intensely in defence of independence, amnesty, self-determination and freedom," she said.
Accompanied by Puigdemont and Comín, the new JxCat MEP denounced the absence from the parliamentary session of the imprisoned Oriol Junqueras, who was the first of the four pro-independence Catalan politicians to be recognized by the Parliament as validly elected MEPs last December, but was then deprived of that status by a Spanish justice ruling, which is still being fought. Ponsatí demanded the immediate restoration of Junqueras's parliamentary status. "It is a scandal that Spanish justice does not obey European justice," he said.
Spanish extradition efforts continue
Meanwhile, the Spanish Supreme Court has this Monday sent the president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, a request to waive Clara Ponsatí's immunity as an MEP, which the Spanish court does not recognize as applying in Spain or the United Kingdom. The document, aimed ultimately at achieving Ponsatí's extradition to Spain, contains the various resolutions agreed in the case, as well as the sentencing document which convicted many of Ponsatí's former colleagues for sedition last October. The European chamber has recognized the former Catalan education minister's status as an MEP despite the rejection of this by Spain's electoral commission.
Clara Ponsatí's defence has also pointed out that, contrary to Spanish claims that Brexit leaves the Catalan politician unprotected by EU parliamentary immunity in the UK, there is a specific clause in the EU-UK withdrawal agreement stating that immunity continues during the transition period, until the end of 2020.