MEP Clara Ponsatí returned to Catalonia on Tuesday, crossing the French-Spanish border without turning herself in to the authorities after five years outside Spain, living between Belgium and Scotland, to avoid jail. The former Minister of Education has arrived in Catalonia this afternoon, where she will offer a press conference to explain her return from Belgium.
Current member of the European Parliament for Junts, Ponsatí (66 years old) has an arrest warrant in force in Spain for a crime of disobedience for the organization of the referendum on October 1. She also has precautionary MEP immunity granted by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
"I feel very good, happy to be able to set foot in southern Catalonia again," Ponsatí said in exclusive statements to the ACN agency, with which he made the return trip. From the same car with which he has crossed from Perpignan, Ponsatí has assured that he is now "waiting for the next hours and days".
The return of Ponsatí takes place after the examining magistrate of the procés case, Pablo Llarena, adapted his prosecution and that of the rest of the defendants not tried by the 1-O organization, to the repeal of the Penal Code for the crime of sedition for which he claimed.
Llarena has refused to prosecute her for the moment for the new aggravated type of public disorder, as the Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney wanted. In addition, Llarena promised Ponsatí and Marta Rovira – also accused of public disorder – that "the detention will be limited to the time strictly necessary to guarantee the continuation of the process."
On her return trip, Ponsatí herself, as she did in January when Llarena ruled that she could not substitute sedition for the crime of aggravated public disorder, has warned that she will not appear before the Supreme Court because she does not recognize the jurisdiction of Judge Llarena and has challenged the magistrate, recalling that he has immunity and pointing out that his arrest warrant "is not legal".
A few months before the 2017 independence referendum, Ponsatí entered the government of Carles Puigdemont as head of the Ministry of Education, in charge of opening schools as polling stations. After 1-O and the subsequent vote on the declaration of independence in Parliament, Ponsatí went to Belgium and there he received the first European arrest warrant from the National Court, which accused him of a crime of rebellion for his role in the referendum.
When this first Euroorder was withdrawn at the beginning of 2018, Ponsatí settled in Scotland, where she rejoined as Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Saint Andrews. Specialist in Game Theory and Public Economics, Ponsatí has a long academic career with stays at various universities in the United States, such as Georgetown or Princeton. "The difference between living abroad and living in exile is that now I can't go home," she wrote in 2022 in her memoir. This Tuesday she has returned home taking advantage of the reform of the Penal Code.
The second and third Eurowarrant for Llarena was already caught in Scotland. The latter was already only for a crime of sedition, since the Supreme Court changed it in line with the sentence for the cause of the November 2019 process. However, Ponsatí was exposed to a sentence of more than 10 years in prison. At the beginning of 2020, the former minister entered the European Parliament as a Junts MEP thanks to the new distribution of seats due to Brexit and she returned to Brussels. For this reason, Scotland definitively closed the case for her extradition in August 2021. The Edinburgh court considered that Ponsatí was no longer under her jurisdiction and that, therefore, the judicial process had to be completed to extradite her in Spain.
The Junts MEP was therefore pending before the Belgian courts, which are still waiting for the European courts to address a possible fourth Euro-order against the pro-independence leaders in exile. However, with the reform of the Penal Code, the Supreme Court has only redone the arrest warrant in Spain against her for a crime of disobedience, which does not entail prison sentences and, therefore, makes a Euro-warrant unfeasible.
In his last letter, Llarena denied that he had to request a new request from the European Parliament because the arrest warrant in Spain is "national." The magistrate also rejected that the crimes have prescribed, as argued by the defense of the MEP in the last appeal presented in the Supreme Court.
Ponsatí currently enjoys the precautionary Euro-parliamentary immunity granted to him by the Court of Justice of the EU at the end of May 2022. The General Court of the EU (TGUE), first instance in Luxembourg, is about to resolve the claim of Ponsatí, Puigdemont and Comín against the European Parliament because, in his opinion, it withdrew their protection irregularly. The eventual decision of the TGUE can be appealed in last instance to the CJEU.
The CJEU granted immunity by considering the "foreseeability of his arrest and delivery to the Spanish authorities if the execution of the decisions of Parliament by means of which his immunity was suspended is not suspended." "The eventual detention (by a Eurowarrant) could cause them serious and irreparable damage. The same would happen, a fortiori, with the handing over of the appellants to the Spanish authorities, which could lead to a long-term deprivation of liberty," he pointed out. the order of the CJEU.
