Call on EU chamber to investigate Spanish electoral board scandal

Carles Puigdemont, Clara Ponsatí and Toni Comín, the three exiled Catalan pro-independence politicians in the European Parliament have sent a letter to chamber speaker David Sassoli reporting “serious irregularities” surrounding the role of a former member of Spain’s electoral authority and urging an investigation.

It was revealed this week that Gabriel Betancor, a professor of constitutional law at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, was a paid advisor to unionist political party Ciudadanos (Cs) while also a member of Spain’s electoral board between 2017 and 2019. The three Catalan MEPs claim that Gabriel Betancor was a prime mover behind efforts to have them declared ineligible for the 2019 European election

Also in the letter, the MEPs call for Cs to be removed from the presidency of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs, the body that is considering the Spanish judiciary’s appeal that the chamber waive the immunity of Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí.

Serious corruption scandal

The Betancor case is a “serious corruption scandal” and an “attack on the democratic system,” says the letter, which also points out that it was the electoral board omitting their names that initially led the EU chamber to refuse to recognize them as MEPs.

That, they continue in the letter, “has not only generated litigation, but also costs for both ourselves and the parliament, and prevented us from acting as elected members, with all that means for us and the voters we represent.”