The Electoral Commission for the province of Barcelona has said that Catalan public broadcaster TV3 "will have to abstain from using" the expressions "government in exile" and "exiled ministers" (govern a l'exili and consellers exiliats) to refer to president Carles Puigdemont and ministers Lluís Puig, Clara Ponsatí, Meritxell Serret and Toni Comín, who have been in Belgium since 30th October.
The body working for the transparency of the 21st December Catalan election thus partially agree with Ciutadans (Citizens), who had complained that such descriptions go against "reporting neutrality", as, from the state's point of view, Puigdemont and the ministers are no longer in office and have accepted to stand for the new Parliament election.
According to a resolution seen by Spanish newspaper El País, the commission believes that "the expressions used as a journalist style resource by professionals of the public channel, as they introduce the concept of 'exile', are not rigorous enough, can confuse the average viewer and violate the principle of journalistic neutrality". It adds that such usage "breaks article 66 of LOREG [Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime], and specifically the principle of journalistic neutrality, and from now on will have to abstain from using them".
Nonetheless, the Commission rejects Ciutadans petition that they should have to explicitly refer to Puigdemont and the rest of the government as "ex-president" and "ex-ministers", as they believe that their "dismissal is a well-known fact".
The parties can now appeal to the Central Electoral Commission.