Catalans will protest in Strasbourg for EU parliament inauguration

After tens of thousand-strong demonstrations in Madrid and Brussels, the pro-independence camp prepares a third massive protest outside Catalonia. Strasbourg, July 2 are the place and date chosen — and it is no coincidence that the protest will take place outside the European parliament building when the chamber inaugurates the new term after the May election.

The Council for the Republic, a private organization led by exiled president Carles Puigdemont, called for Catalans to travel to the French city to defend their right to become MEPs, together with exiled Toni Comín and political prisoner Oriol Junqueras.

In a statement, the group announced that it would work together with other Catalan pro-independence civic organizations, and calls on other European entities which feel involved in the defense of the rights and democracy to join.

EP credibility

For Puigdemont’s council, leaving himself, Comín and Junqueras out of the institution after being elected MEPs by 1.7 million people (and 49.7% of Catalonia’s voters) would be “a very serious precedent which would damage the European Parliament’s credibility.”

So far the exiled former president and the former minister Comín have been barred from entering the chamber building in Brussels once, which prompted Puigdemont’s complaint against the institution’s heads and the EU ombudsman.