ECJ dismisses action by two Catalan MEPs over exclusion

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has dismissed an action taken by two leading Catalan separatist MEPs against their exclusion from the European Parliament in 2019.

In the European Parliament elections in June of that year, Carles Puigdemont and Antonio Comín were elected but refused to go to Madrid to take an oath pledging to respect the Spanish constitution, as is required of newly-elected MEPs, ahead of taking up their seats in Brussels.

Earlier, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani had issued an instruction stating the candidates should be refused access to the "special welcome service" provided to newly-elected MEPs and that their parliamentary credentials should be suspended until their election was officially confirmed by the Spanish authorities.

When the Spanish Central Electoral Commission notified the European Parliament of the list of Spanish MEPs, both Mr Puigdemont's and Mr Comín’s names were absent from the list.

The electoral commission informed the Parliament that under Spanish electoral law the two seats had to be regarded as vacant, since neither man had taken the obligatory oath.

On 27 June 2019, Mr Tajani wrote to both men saying they could not be regarded as incoming MEPs as their names were not on the list provided by the Spanish authorities.

The following day Mr Puigdement and Mr Comín took legal action to have the decision annulled at the General Court of the ECJ. However, the court dismissed the case in July 2022 on the basis that the ability of a president of the European Parliament to decline credentials was not one that was open to legal challenge.

The two men then appealed that decision to the higher court.

Today judges in the higher court - the ECJ - definitively dismissed the action.

They ruled that the lower court was correct in assessing that in June 2019, the European Parliament president could not depart from the list of official elected MEPs provided by the Spanish authorities.

The court declared that President Tajani had no power to review the accuracy of the list, as it would undermine the division of powers between the European Union and member states.

The accuracy of a list was for national capitals alone to decide, the ECJ ruled.

As such, the letter of 27 June 2019 did not alter the legal situation regarding Mr Puigdemont and Mr Comín, and was not, therefore, open to challenge.

On 1 October 2017, Catalan separatists had held a referendum on Catalan independence from Spain.

Following the vote, criminal proceedings were brought against Mr Puigdemont and Mr Comín, at the time respectively the president and a member of the Catalan regional government.

Both men left Spain, meaning proceedings against them were suspended until they had been located.

They later emerged in Brussels where they lobbied against their arrest and extradition warrants, and in 2019 they ran for election to the European Parliament.

Mr Comín was re-elected to the European Parliament in this year's June elections and again refused to take the constitutional oath in Madrid.

Spain again left his name off of its list of officially elected MEPs. The current president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, has delayed taking action pending today’s ECJ ruling.