Spain's top court has said Catalan jailed separatist leader Oriol Junqueras will not be granted legal immunity. The EU's top court had ruled that — as a member of the European Parliament — he should be entitled to it.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/P. Barrena
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Spain's Supreme Court on Thursday said that Oriol Junqueras should not be released from prison, denying him immunity as a a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).
Judges in Luxembourg in December said the politician should be entitled to immunity as a member of the parliament. It said he should have been allowed to travel to a Spanish swearing-in ceremony at the parliament after he was elected an MEP last May.
However, the Madrid court refused to recognize Junqueras as an MEP because the deliberation stage of his trial had already begun when he was officially recognized as an MEP elect.
"There are no grounds to grant his freedom," the court wrote in its ruling. It said the ECJ-recognized travel privileges were "not a protective shield against the sentence."
Sentenced for sedition
Junqueras, who is head of the separatist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) party, was sentenced to 13 years in prison last October for his role in Catalonia's failed 2017 secession bid. The charges were sedition and misuse of public funds.
The ECJ's ruling late last year had been hailed as a victory for Junqueras.
However, the court said Spain's top court should decide on how its ruling should apply, given that Junqueras' status had changed from suspect to convicted felon.
The decision in Madrid disregarded an advisory opinion by Spain's state attorney, which said Junqueras should be released in line with the ECJ decision. It also provoked an angry reaction from Junqueras‘ supporters.
"Shame on the Spanish justice system, it is a scandal!" top ERC party official Pere Aragones wrote on Twitter. "You cannot ignore the ECJ ruling. Once again, this violates the rights of Junqueras and thousands of citizens who voted for him. We will fight to the end."
Spain has issued European Arrest Warrants for two other Catalan politicians who were also elected as MEPs, Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comin. The pair fled Spain after an outlawed 2017 referendum on independence, and are now living in Belgium.
Catalans, Galicians, Basques and more: Spain's many nationalities
With a strong identity of its own, Catalonia is now at the center of a tug-of-war between the central government and autonomous authorities. To differing degrees, various parts of Spain have strong national self-images.
Image: Reuters/J. Nazca
A Roman province
The Romans had several provinces with Hispania in their names on the Iberian Peninsula. Modern Spain also encompasses such wide cultural diversity that the Spanish themselves speak of Las Espanas (The Spains). The country in its present form was never united under a single ruler until after the 1702-14 War of the Spanish Succession.
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A nation of regions
Spanish nationalism is strong in many regions, with former kingdoms such as Aragon largely content to be recognized as part of the Spanish nation-state. Asturias has its own language, but takes pride in its role as the birthplace of the Reconquista, or the taking back of Iberia from the Moors. Spanish nationalism was evident in recent years in Madrid in response to Catalonia's referendum.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Soriano
Bloodied fingers
Catalonia has long battled for independence. Its flag, the Senyera, is very similar to that of Aragon, to which it once belonged. The design is fabled to represent four bloodied fingers of Count Wilfred the Hairy being passed over a gold shield. Catalans were fairly happy with their situation until a court struck down the region's statute of autonomy in 2006 and support for independence grew.
Image: picture-alliance/Zumapress/M. Oesterle
No great appetite
Valencianismo, or Valencian nationalism, sprang out of the Renaixenca, an early-19th-century rebirth of the Catalan language, of which Valencian is just one variant. However, nationalist sentiment is not widespread in the region, which is home to Spain's Tomatina tomato-throwing festival. The Valencian Nationalist Bloc usually gets about 4 percent of the vote for the autonomous parliament.
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Other Catalan territories
The Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera — all speak variants of Catalan. Though there is a greater nationalist feeling on the islands than in Valencia, it is still more subdued than in Catalonia. Meanwhile, La Franja, a strip of Catalan-speaking land in Aragon, was split by the independence referendum, though most residents do not advocate self-determination for themselves.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Seeger
The Basque Country
Because of terror attacks by the ETA militant group, Basque separatists used to make the headlines far more often than Catalonia's independence movement. Separatists consider the Basque Country in France and Spain and the region of Navarre to be one nation. About a third of people want full independence, but most want more autonomy. A referendum proposed in 2008 was ruled illegal.
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The Galician cause
Although it was the birthplace of the centralist dictator Francisco Franco, Galicia has the strongest tradition of separatism after Catalonia and the Basque Country. Even Spain's mainstream national parties display a streak of Galicianism in the region. Perhaps as a result, starkly nationalist parties receive a lower share of the regional vote.
The Arabic name al-Andalus originally refers to the areas of the Iberian Peninsula that were under Moorish rule for 760 years. As Christians reconquered territories, the area known as Andalusia shrank southwards. Most Andalusians voted for autonomy after Franco died in 1975, but there is little appetite for full independence.
