The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has annulled the European Parliament’s 2021 decision to waive the parliamentary immunity of three Catalan pro-independence MEPs.
The order applies to former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his former ministers Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.
The ruling, delivered today, sets aside a prior judgment of the EU General Court from July 2023 that had upheld the waivers. It also directly annuls the European Parliament’s decisions of March 9, 2021.
The case stems from criminal proceedings in Spain following the October 1, 2017 Catalan independence referendum.
The Spanish Supreme Court charged Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí with offences including rebellion (insurgency) and misappropriation of public funds.
After they left Spain, arrest warrants were issued and proceedings paused.
The three were elected to the EP in the May 2019 elections in Spain.
Puigdemont and Comín took seats from July 2019, while Ponsatí took a seat from February 2020.
Spain’s Supreme Court then requested the waiver of their immunity to pursue extradition and a trial. The EP granted the requests in 2021.
Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí challenged the waivers before the EU General Court, which dismissed their action. They then appealed to the CJEU.
The top EU court ruled that the procedure was invalidated by a breach of the requirement of impartiality in appointing the rapporteur who examined the waiver requests.
The EP’s’s own rules exclude a rapporteur from the same political group as the MEP concerned, to avoid doubts over bias.
The CJEU held that consistency and the right to good administration (Article 41(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights) also requires excluding rapporteurs from a group that includes members of the political party that instigated the criminal proceedings, in this case Spain’s hard-right VOX party.
The appointed rapporteur, Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki, belonged to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the EP, which also included VOX members.
Moreover, on March 6 2019, before the waiver requests but after VOX had initiated proceedings, the rapporteur organised an EP event titled Catalonia is Spain, at which VOX’s Secretary-General Javier Ortega Smith spoke.
The event concluded with the chant “Long live Spain, long live Europe and lock Puigdemont up!” which the CJEU said could indicate support for the prosecution and raise legitimate doubts about impartiality.
It held that EP rules, excluding rapporteurs from the same group as the MEP concerned, should extend consistently to avoid perceived bias linked to parties instigating proceedings.
The General Court had erred by not adequately weighing these factors, rendering the reports invalid and leading to annulment of the waiver decisions, it said.
#ECJ annuls the @Europarl_EN ‘s decisions to lift the immunity of Carles Puigdemont, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí 👉 https://t.co/ntrfISSN3m
— EU Court of Justice (@EUCourtPress) February 5, 2026
