The Catalan police, the Mossos d'Esquadra, arrested the ex-Catalan minister and now MEP, Clara Ponsatí, in Barcelona's Plaça de la Catedral at six o'clock this Tuesday afternoon. A plainclothes officer identified himself to her and arrested her. The former minister, who returned from exile today, left the Association of Journalists and started walking in the direction of El Born. She was arrested at the Plaça de la Catedral. The arrest was made by a sub-inspector of the Mossos d'Esquadra. After informing her that she was to be arrested, the ex-minister was escorted to a plain-clothes car belonging to the Catalan police, which to be handed over to the duty judge by order of the Spanish Supreme Court.
At the time of the arrest, the MEP showed the police her identification as a member of the European Parliament, asserting that she had immunity, despite being subject to an arrest warrant in Spain. The Mossos d'Esquadra will now transfer the former minister of the Carles Puigdemont government to the duty court, where she will be notified that she has been arrested by order of judge Llarena and, in all probability, will be released pending a summons to Madrid. It will be then, if she does not appear in Madrid, that the arrest will be activated again.
European parliamentary immunity?
Ponsatí currently is protected by provisional European parliamentary immunity granted to her by the European Court of Justice at the end of May 2022, although this did not prevent the Mossos from stopping Ponsatí on the street, in the centre of Barcelona, and carrying out the arrest. The European General Court (EGC), the court of first instance in Luxembourg, has yet to resolve the claim of Ponsatí, Puigdemont and Comín against the European Parliament because, according to them, it withdrew their protection in an irregular manner. The eventual decision of the EGC can be appealed in the last instance to the ECJ.