Only hours before the inauguration of the new legislature of the European Parliament (EP), the EU General Court (EGC) has dismissed Catalonia's president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, and minister Toni Comín's "application for interim measures to order the EP to enable them to take their seats in Parliament".
Last Friday, Puigdemont and Comín presented an application for interim measures where they requested the president of the General Court, Marc Jaeger, to order precautionary measures for the Parliament to guarantee that they could take their seats from the time of the inaugural session of the legislature to be held tomorrow Tuesday, while a final decision was being reached on their appeal against EP president Antonio Tajani.
The court declared the procedure to be admissible, which will take several months before it is resolved, and this afternoon the court informed of their decision to dismiss the precautionary measures.
The president of the General Court argumented his refusal by highlighting that the credentials of the deputies are proclaimed by EU member states and that the Parliament cannot question the validity of the declaration issued by the authorities of each of the countries.
As a result, and provided that neither Puigdemont or Comín's names are on the list sent by the Spanish authorities, their names have not been officially declared elect following the sense of 1976 Act which regulates the form of designation of the MEP. “the applicants cannot successfully claim that the Parliament should have considered the proclamation of 13 June 2019 as the official declaration”, Jaeger warns.
As to the question of whether the claimants should have been allowed to swear or to affirm allegiance to the Spanish Constitution without attending the Spanish Congress on the 17th June, he warns that that was “to be settled by Spanish authorities” and states that the response in relation to this issue is still pending the decision of a Spanish national court.
This is the conclusion arrived at by the EGC: that there was no scope for the EP to verify the declaration by the Spanish authorities and that "consequently, there was also no scope for the Parliament to accord to the applicants on a provisional basis, a seat in Parliament until their credentials had been verified”