On Wednesday, the General Court of the European Union, one of the two jurisdictional bodies of the Court of Justice of the European Union, revoked the parliamentary immunity of the former president of Catalonia, now a member of the European Parliament, Carles Puigdemont; the decision also affects two other Catalan MEPs, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
Puigdemont had been elected to the European Parliament together with Comín and Ponsati in 2019, obtaining the immunity provided for by European rules. Thanks to that they had been protected from the requests for extradition that the Spanish Supreme Court had made against them: they were in fact accused together with other Catalan independence leaders of having drawn up a plan for the secession of Catalonia from Spain with the proclamation of independence by of the Catalan parliament following the October 2017 referendum (considered illegal by the Spanish state).
The General Court of the European Union ruled on an appeal filed by Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsati against a decision with which the European Parliament in March 2021 had decided on its own initiative to revoke the immunity of the three. Meanwhile in May 2022 the Court of Justice (the other body that makes up the Court of Justice of the European Union together with the General Court) but he had ordered to temporarily restore their parliamentary immunity: the Court’s order ceased to have effect with Wednesday’s decision. The former president of Catalonia has announced on his Twitter profile that he will appeal.
After the waiver of immunity, the Spanish Supreme Court could issue a new European arrest warrant against Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsati, who currently live in Belgium, a country that had already denied their extradition in the past.