The former Catalan government’s ministers Raül Romeva and Josep Rull held an online conversation Tuesday afternoon with MEP and former MEP from eight European Member states and four different European political groups where they explained the political repression they are experiencing.
The meeting,which also had the interventions of MEP Carles Puigdemont and MEP Diana Riba, was organised by the EU-Catalonia Dialogue Platform.
During the conversation former and current members of the European Parliament – from France, Sweden, Portugal, Latvia, Estonia, Basque Country, Slovenia, Corsica, Flanders and Catalonia-discussed about the Catalan political conflict, the political repression, the judicial arbitrariness, the harshening of prison conditions during COVID pandemic and the announced reform of the Spanish criminal law among other issues.
French Greens/EFA MEPBenoit Biteau declared that “after three years, we cannot accept that in Europe there are men and women sentenced up to 13 years of prison because they organised an independence referendum”. According to MEP Biteau, it is not acceptable that “the crime of sedition is being used by the Spanish State even though it is not recognised by any other country of the European Union” Mr. Biteu also asked the Spanish government to offer a political solution to the Catalan conflict.
On the other hand, French MEP Leila Chaibi, member of the GUE/NGL group, expressed her “outrage” of seeing Romeva and Rull imprisoned one year after she personally visited them in Lledoners Prison. MEP Chaibi restated that “political conflicts are resolved though political means not judicially”.