The president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, has announced an internal investigation into the leak of the report on the request to waive the immunity as an MEP of Carles Puigdemont, Catalan president in exile, and two other colleagues.
This was announced at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday. Following the publication in the Spanish newspaper ABC of the proposal drawn up by far-right MEP Angel Dzhambazki to lift the Catalan leader's immunity, defence lawyers had called for an inquiry.
Later, the president of the Committee of Legal Affairs and MEP for Ciudadanos, Adrián Vázquez, also sent a letter to Sassoli to request an inquiry into the incident.
Consequently, the Italian Socialist will call on the Secretary General of the chamber, Klaus Welle, to investigate this breach of the confidentiality of the process, which affected the interests of the three Catalan MEPs, Puigdemont, Clara Ponsatí and Toni Comín.
The Committee on Legal Affairs includes eight Spanish MEPs who could have had a political interest in leaking the report. They are Adrián Vázquez (Citizens), Ibán García del Blanco (PSOE), Esteban González Pons (PP), Marcos Ros Sempere (PSOE), Javier Zarzalejos (PP), and the substitutes Jorge Buxadé (Vox), Javier Nart (ex-Ciudadanos) and Nacho Sánchez Amor (PSOE).
Correction of error in Ponsatí report
There have been several procedural incidents in relation to the Catalan MEPs' immunity case. Today, the European Parliament also had to correct the report it approved on Tuesday to lift the immunity of Clara Ponsatí after finding that, as reported yesterday by ElNacional.cat, an alleged offence of misuse of public funds was attributed to the Catalan education minister, when the investigating Spanish judge Pablo Llarena had not contemplated that in the European Arrest Warrant which is the basis of the immunity hearing.
The report, drafted by ultra-conservative Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki, stated that the Supreme Court had asked for Ponsatí's immunity to be suspended for two alleged offences: sedition, and misuse of public funds.
However, the EAW issued by the Spanish judge in November 2019 did not accuse the former minister of this economic offence, as the 2019 independence leaders' trial failed to successfully quantify the offence, based on the cost of using public schools as referendum polling stations.
After that trial, the Spanish Supreme Court accused president Carles Puigdemont and health minister Toni Comín of both sedition and misuse of funds. Culture minister Lluís Puig was accused of misuse of funds, and education minister Ponsatí only faced the charge of sedition.