Some twenty MEPs have this Wednesday called for the release of the Catalan "politicians and social leaders" held in preventive detention in Madrid, the end of article 155 in Catalonia and EU intervention in the conflict to find a "negotiated solution" ending in a referendum negotiated with Spain. The call came during the presentation of the EU-Catalonia dialogue platform in Brussels today. The platform includes the daughter of one of the founders of the EU, Barbara Spinelli, former Slovenian Foreign minister Ivo Vajgl and the vice-president of PES (Party of European Socialists), Tanja Fajon.
They also wrote a letter to the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, and his predecessor, Martin Schulz, for them to make statements on the ministers' imprisonment, and especially on Raül Romeva and Oriol Junqueras, who have both been MEPs.
"We're profoundly worried by the critical point the situation in Catalonia has reached, and as such we've decided to join our voices and act together in the strongest way to call for the EU institutions to make a responsible gesture to favour dialogue and find a solution", say the MEPs in the group's creation manifesto.
As such, the MEPs explain that they will push for measures to achieve four objectives: the release "of the politicians and social leaders who are in prison"; "the annulment of article 155, based on which democratically elected public servants have been fired and the Catalan institutions intervened in"; "mediation" by European institutions in the conflict, which they do not consider to be an "internal matter for Spain, but [a matter] for the EU"; and the achievement of an "agreement negotiated between Spain and Catalonia which should end in a referendum".
The platform includes MEPs from most of the 8 groups in the European Parliament, for example Tanja Fajon from PES; Ivo Vajgl from ALDE; José Bové, Igor Soltes, Bodil Valero and Bart Staes from Greens-EFA; Lynn Boylan, Martina Anderson, Matt Carthy, Barbara Spinelli and Tatjana Zdanoka from GUE-NGL and Mark Demesmaeker from ECR. They also represent a range of countries, including Slovenia, France, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Latvia. The platform also includes Jordi Solé, Josep Maria Terricabras and Ramon Tremosa from Catalonia, Izaskun Bilbao and Josu Juaristi from the Basque County and Lidia Senra from Galicia.