EU court confirms lifting of Catalan MEPs' immunity

The Court of Justice of the EU on Wednesday dismissed a challenge brought by three Catalan MEPs over the European Parliament stripping them of their immunity at Spain's request.

The court said it "rejects all the pleas" made by the three -- Carles Puigdemont, Antoni Comin and Clara Ponsati -- effectively confirming the parliament's 2021 decision.

Spain had asked for their immunity as EU lawmakers to be lifted so it could pursue legal action against the trio for a 2017 independence referendum in its Catalonia region that Madrid had banned.

Puigdemont, the Catalan leader at the time, had led efforts to stage the referendum along with Ponsati and Comin.

The vote was marred by police violence.

Several weeks later, the Catalan administration issued a short-lived declaration of independence, triggering a political crisis.

Puigdemont, Ponsati and Comin fled abroad to escape jail in Spain, with all three ending up in self-exile in Belgium, where they have been legislators in the European Parliament since 2019.

They had lodged a challenge to the lifting of their immunity, and Wednesday's decision by the EU's General Court -- one of the tribunals making up the Court of Justice of the European Union -- was a ruling on that.

The court rejected their argument that the European Parliament's principle of impartiality had been violated.

It also determined that "the parliament is not required to examine the legality of the Spanish judicial acts" as that issue comes "exclusively" under the competence of Spanish authorities.

It dismissed all the actions brought by the trio, "in particular their arguments that the parliament erred in concluding that the legal proceedings at issue were not brought with the intention of damaging the members’ activities"