Ahead of the first sitting of the new European Parliament Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s\nspokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the European\nParliament President, Antonio Tajani, to ensure that the political rights of Catalan\nMEPs are protected. His comments come after the Spanish government\u2019s latest\nattempts to violate the rights of Catalan MEPs and disregard the democratic\nmandate they received from over 2 million EU citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe former President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, the former Vice-President, Oriol Junqueras, and the former Minister for Health, Antoni Com\u00edn, were democratically elected as Members of the European Parliament by Catalan voters on 26 May 2019.<\/p>
\u201cCarles Puigdemont and Antoni Com\u00edn are living in forced exile in Belgium, while Oriol Junqueras is currently imprisoned in Madrid on political motivated charges. They are being prosecuted by the Spanish government for their alleged involvement in organising a democratic referendum on Catalan independence, which they were mandated to do by Catalan voters.<\/p>
\u201cLast month a Spanish court rejected Oriol Junqueras\u2019 petition to leave jail and begin the process of fulfilling his democratic mandate and becoming a MEP. Despite not being convicted of any crime he remains in prison on pre-trial detention for over 600 days and he will not\u00a0be able to attend the first session of the new European Parliament tomorrow, 2 July.<\/p>
\u201cThe Spanish authorities are also attempting to block Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Com\u00edn from fulfilling their democratic mandates and\u00a0attending tomorrow\u2019s first sitting. The Spanish government are demanding that they first return to Spain and swear an oath of allegiance to the constitution in the Spanish Parliament. If they return to Spain they will be imprisoned on\u00a0similar politically motivated charges.<\/p>
\u201cThe Spanish government\u2019s last ditch\u00a0attempt to ban these MEPs from taking their seats is a clear violation of their political rights and a disregard for the over 2 million EU citizens that voted for them.<\/p>
\u201cThere is now\u00a0a possibility that the European Parliament President, Antonio Tajani, will block Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Com\u00edn\u2019s entry to the Parliament tomorrow at the request of the Spanish authorities. This would be unprecedented, wrong, and completely undemocratic.<\/p>
\u201cI am calling on the European Parliament President to ensure that the political rights of\u00a0these three MEPs are\u00a0safeguarded and to ensure that they\u00a0are allowed to fully participate in tomorrow\u2019s\u00a0inaugural\u00a0sitting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ahead of the first sitting of the new European Parliament Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the European Parliament President, Antonio Tajani, to ensure that the political rights of Catalan MEPs are protected. His comments come after the Spanish government\u2019s latest attempts to violate the rights of Catalan MEPs and disregard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catalonia","category-european-parliament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3849"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3850,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3849\/revisions\/3850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}