Junts already has its list for the European elections on June 9 and will be headed by Toni Comin. The former minister and MEP, a supporter of Carles Puigdemont, He appeared this Wednesday from Strasbourg to assure that “it is an honor” be the one chosen by the formation and that these years have been “of many victories” at the European level of the independence movement, which will benefit from the amnesty law. Comín, accompanied by Puigdemont and other members of the list, pointed out that these achievements are, according to his version, “fruit of courage and realism”which in his opinion have to go hand in hand.
For his part, Puigdemont himself, now a candidate for the Catalan elections of May 12, He maintains that his idea is to “return for the investiture” to Catalonia, since by then the amnesty law could already be in force. That scenario has not changed for Junts, which hopes to remain “strong” in the European Parliament to continue, said the former president, “the interests of Catalonia” in the European Union. He does not speculate further and prefers to wait until the regional elections are over to talk about pacts.
Comín recalled that the Catalan independence movement has accumulated “political and judicial triumphs” in this European legislature, which already ends. He gave as an example what happened with the German, Italian or Belgian justice system, since the European order issued by Judge Pablo Llarena against him and against Puigdemont has not been applied. The question of parliamentary immunity, however, remains in European justice. Now, they stated, the aspiration is to “improve” the result of 2019, when they obtained three MEPs.
All the relevance that Carles Puigdemont has at the national level has disappeared, despite his versions, when looking at the European scene: “You understand the role he has in national politics and his possible influence, just as he made some noise at the time in the European Parliament,” commented the sources consulted by 20 minuteswho at the same time recognize that the former Catalan president He does return to the front row of the community media “when talking about his immunity.”
However, on a day-to-day basis Puigdemont has carried out the work of a third or fourth row MEP, without presence and without influence. Because? Because, like his compatriots Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, he has been a member of the “non-registered” group, that is, Junts does not fit into any ideological family And furthermore, with the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU, it has lost the little support that the Catalan independence movement had among the Brexiteers. He has hardly had any interventions in plenary sessions and among the 705 seats in the European Parliament, his is one of the least active. Regarding the return to a political family, Comín has not given any clues either and says that he prefers to wait until the elections are over; only then will they sit down to talk.
Puigdemont, however, has been part of the International Trade Commission, the Commission of Investigation Tasked with Examining the Use of the Pegasus Surveillance Spy Program and Other Equivalent Programmes, of the Delegation to the EU-Montenegro Parliamentary Committee on Stabilization and Association and of the Delegation for Relations with the Pan-African Parliament. In addition, she is a substitute Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
The appearance of Puigdemont and Comín has arrived shortly after the Government in Congress entered fully into the Catalan campaign by comparing Junts with the PP, claiming that “they need each other”, in the words of the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños. “Separators and separatists, all united in that nostalgia for the year 2017,” he denounced in his reply to Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. For Bolaños, the next 12-M the Catalans will have to decide “between past, conflict and confrontation or future, agreements, dialogue and Salvador Illa.”
