Puigdemont case: Tajani orders suspension of temporary accreditations for all new Spanish MEPs

EuroParliament bends to the PP, the PSOE, and Cs, who requested this after Puigdemont and Comín were denied entry

Júlia Manresa
2 min
El conservador italià Antonio Tajani és el candidat favorit per convertir-se avui en president del Parlament Europeu

The European Parliament has decided to suspend all temporary accreditations granted on Wednesday to new Spanish MEPs after refusing to accredit the elected MEPs for JxCat, Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín. The MEPs from the PP, the PSOE, and Ciudadanos wrote a letter to the President of the Parliament, Antonio Tajani, in which they requested that these temporary accreditations be suspended for all Spanish MEPs because the Spanish legislation stipulates that they cannot be granted until there has been an official notification from the Central Electoral Board with the list of definitive MEPs. The request came just after Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín were denied access to the Parliament to request this accreditation, while other new MEPs in the same situation were allowed to do so. Tajani has done as these three parties asked to "avoid political disturbances in Spain".

The current president of the European Parliament, a member of the European PP party, issued a letter ordering the Secretary General of the Parliament to make this decision, and he also responded by letter to the MEPs who made the request, Esteban González Pons, Javier Nart, and Iratxe Garcia. In the letter, Tajani asserts that temporary accreditation is an "administrative" practice that Parliament offers its new members to allow them to begin negotiations before the inaugural session in July. In the letter, Tajani claims that he was ordering the suspension of all accreditations granted or to be granted to Spanish MEPs "to ensure fair and equitable treatment."

Tajani justified that temporary credentials have been issued in the past "based on unofficial information obtained from member states." However, he explained that accreditation only becomes final once the national authorities send the list of elected MEPs. For this reason, Tajani assured that the granting of these temporary accreditations "has no legal effect" and does not grant any rights. Despite all this justification, however, Tajani said he understood that this process could cause "political disturbances in Spain, where the results are not definitive because the ballot count is still ongoing." For this reason, he clarified, with "the aim of avoiding any interference in the official process, I have instructed the Secretary General to suspend accreditations to all new Spanish members until the official notification is received from the Spanish authorities."

But Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín have denounced the discriminatory treatment received and their legal representatives have already sent letters to the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, and to the Secretary General, Klaus Welle, in which they formally complain about the discriminatory treatment they were subjected to when they were prevented from entering the European Parliament to begin the proceedings, as other elected MEPs did. In the letter to Klaus Welle, they also request a copy of the list including the names of the elected MEPs that they were shown at the entrance, as well as any documentation pertaining to the prohibition. Likewise, they requested access to the security camera footage that proves everything that happened on Wednesday.

Toni Comín has already complained via Twitter that with this suspension "all Spanish MEPs are being discriminated against in relation to those of other countries." Yesterday the new MEP for Ciudadanos José Ramón Bauzá celebrated on Twitter that he had obtained his provisional accreditation.

stats