The arrest of Catalan president in exile Carles Puigdemont and his extradition to Spain has once again failed to eventuate - not this Monday, in Italy, either. The slap in the face which the Court of Appeal of Sassari has given to the Spanish Supreme Court for bypassing the suspension of the European Arrest Warrants, as the Kingdom of Spain communicated to the General Court of the European Union, is a total reverse for a justice system that is scuttling like a headless chicken around the courts of different European countries. Puigdemont has won again and Llarena has lost again. This is the news that the so-called media of reference in Spain, accustomed to constructing a parallel reality for everything related to the Catalan independence movement, will find very difficult to hide.
It is almost not remarkable anymore due to the repeated international defeats inflicted on the Spanish judiciary, but, despite this, the political importance is major. Italian justice has resolved the matter without any nuances: president Puigdemont is free to travel to any country in the European Union. But it also did more: the legal artillery set up by Vox to play a role in the trial went straight into the trash can and the party's representatives, dispatched in a matter of minutes, stayed out of the courtroom. How different from what happened with the Spanish Supreme Court, which admitted them as a private prosecution in the trial of the pro-independence political prisoners!
Vox, the PP, the PSOE, Ciudadanos: the proclamations they have all made about bringing Puigdemont to Spain, the cries of "Puigdemont in prison" chanted at a party held by Pablo Casado last weekend in Valencia. All the dregs of a Spain torn into a thousand fragments, with a king who has fled to the United Arab Emirates and, as a corollary to all this, the current defence minister, Margarita Robles, has been presented this Monday by the ABC newspaper as someone who, in the 1990s, bore sums from the slush funds in cash - in order for them to be untraceable - worth a total of 60 million pesetas, on behalf of Spain's then-head of state and, as if it were a Berlanga comedy in its purest form, the king emeritus complained that the money should not be in cheques issued by the Bank of Spain.
It is unquestionable, with the facts that are on the table, that we are witnessing, live, an unstoppable escalation of the international ridicule of Spanish justice. But this very Monday, we even saw Llarena ask the Italian authorities to also arrest Comín and Ponsatí, present in l'Alguer! Isn’t he able to put a stop to this chapter, which has more revenge to it than justice? This Spanish spiral will force the European judiciary to take decisions on the precautionary measures requested from the General Court so that Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí regain the immunity granted to them through their status as MEPs as well as their full capacity to move freely around the Union.
A new chapter in the Catalan exile that began after the events of October 2017 has been completed in Sardinia. Belgium, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Austria, France and now Italy have all invalidated the Spanish courts. It is sufficient to make the Kingdom of Spain comply with the "Enough, Spain!" demanded by President Puigdemont and to put into practice the statements made by interior minister Marlaska just 48 hours ago: "What the Italian judges decide will be right." Now they have spoken and they have done so with great forcefulness. Is there anyone in Madrid who thinks they may have been aluded to?