A manifesto signed by 23 members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is calling on Spain to allow Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras i Toni Comín to take their seats as MEPs and considers Spanish authorities' refusal of the democratic right of their deputies "very worrying".
The document, under the title Safeguard the democratic rights of Catalan parliamentarians (below), is referring to Puigdemont and Comín being in exile and to the fact that the Spanish Electoral Commission forces them to go to Madrid to take their MEP credentials, which would trigger their detention.
As regards to Junqueras, it highlights that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions has urged the Spanish government to liberate the pro-independence political prisoners.
“We call on the Spanish authorities to stop blocking the newly elected MEPs from taking office and on the European Parliament to support all its elected members in taking their seats in parliament” -it claims.
The Council of Europe is the most ancient of the political organisations of Western Europe. It consists of a Committee of Ministers and a Parliamentary Assembly.
Among the signatories of the manifesto dated today, there are representatives from Germany, Iceland, Albania, Turkey, Norway, Ireland, Italy, San Marino, The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland and Slovenia.
Thank you! Your support is very important for all of us, but also for European democracy.https://t.co/Mwk2FPoBP4
— Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) 28 de juny de 2019
Catalonia's President in exile, Carles Puigdemont, has expressed his gratitude for their support, in Twitter.