Elena Sycheva: White Flag Catalonia

The head of the Government of Catalonia Carles Puchdemon and his associates, four people, surrendered to the Belgian police. This was written by the Agency of Europa Press with reference to sources in the Belgian prosecutor's office.

“This morning at 09:17 Five people, looking for Spain, are detained. They themselves came to the police, ”the representative of the Brussels prosecutor’s office quoted TASS .

In fact, now the issue of the issuance of Catalan separatists is being decided by the authorities of Spain. Recall that Reuters wrote about this earlier. The kingdom requested from Belgium to give out Puchdemon.

“We will study it and pass it on to the European order to the judge tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” said the prosecutor Eric van der Sipta.

Indeed, the issue of issuing Puchdemon and his associates will be decided in court. The decision should be made within 24 hours from the date of submission of the order - that is, this morning.

“There is a procedure for the so -called European arrest warrant. Accordingly, in connection with this procedure, the authorities of one country may ask for the issuance of a person who has committed crimes from their point of view in the territory of this country, the authorities of another EU country, and in this case, the European arrest warrant always requires a decision of the Belgian court. True, this is not for all crimes - this is usually for crimes having a certain degree of severity, which is authorized by more than three years of imprisonment. From this point of view, we understand that Puchdemon can get quite seriously, ”said Alexander Tevda-Barmuli , associate professor of the department of integration processes of MGIMO.

It is important that, according to the expert, there is an incident. It consists in the fact that the 1999 Dublin Convention prohibits asking for refuge again if it has already been requested from one of the EU countries.

“You can interpret the theoretically the desire to leave the country of your residence, as in the case of Puchdemon and Belgium, as a denial of Spain to provide him with political asylum. If this is interpreted, then Belgium simply does not have the right to give him political asylum. But this incident is quite cunning. I don’t know how they will leave this situation, ”the expert emphasized.

In the event that Belgium issues Puchdemona, he faces an investigation and the court on charges of rebellion and embezzlement of budget funds. However, if earlier the head of the Catalan government himself said that he was ready to put his candidacy in the December elections, now, probably, his rhetoric will change.

Recall that Carles Puchdemon fled from the country after Catalonia declared independence, and Spain in response to this applied Article 155 of the Kingdom Constitution, removing all members of the regional government from the posts. There was introduced a position according to which the powers crossed the deputy prime minister Soraye Saens de Santamaria, the Vanguardia newspaper wrote about this. Mariano Rahai appointed new elections to the Parliament of Catalonia on December 21 of this year.

“The head of government Carlos Puchdemon had the opportunity to restore the legality and declare elections. This is exactly what the majority of the Catalans asked, but he did not want to do it. Therefore, the Spanish government takes the necessary measures to restore the rule of law, ”Rahoy BBC quotes.