• 'Pegasus case' A preliminary report of the European Parliament does not see the threat to national security that the Government invoked to spy on Catalan politicians
  • Justice The National Court cites as witnesses the ministers Marlaska and Robles for the case 'Pegasus' and asks to declassify documents

Neither the president, nor the ministers who suffered attacks, nor the minister of the Presidency, nor the foreign minister. The Government has given a sit-in to the delegation of the European Parliament that will travel to Madrid next Monday and Tuesday to investigate the espionage with the Pegasus program to leaders of the Catalan independence movement and external cyberattacks on members of the Executive. No leader in the front row will receive the committee of MEPs. Neither the president of the Congress, Meritxell Batet, who has delegated to the Defense Commission, nor the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, who has referred him to Andrés Jiménez Rodríguez, director of the Security and Justice area of his agency.

The feeling that some of the members of the delegation have is that the idea that they are being cornered is going to be transmitted, which may arouse suspicion regarding Spain's commitment to this scandal. They had demanded to see Pedro Sánchez, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense, since all three suffered espionage with the Pegasus program, as they themselves acknowledged.

Also to the head of Agriculture and former ambassador to Morocco, Luis Planas, who was the victim of a failed attack. And the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños to ask him what measures the Government plans to take to improve protection, as well as José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to talk about the "external dimension of espionage" and possible foreign interference.

All of them have so far declined - the programme is not definitively closed, just in case - their presence. Instead, MEPs will only meet on Monday, for an hour, with the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pascual Navarro. In the parliamentary delegation they understand that Sánchez will be preparing the motion of censure the next day, and that Tuesday 21 is therefore a bad day for both the ministers and the president of the Congress, but the sources consulted assure that they were explicitly offered to "accommodate" the meeting to the place, day and time that the ministers wanted. In fact, on Monday 20 itself there have been constant agenda changes depending on the confirmations. And the members of the Executive would have had priority.

Pro-independence version

In this way, the agenda of the European delegation is clearly unbalanced towards the independence version. Why? Because MEPs will meet not only with some of the people spied on – with judicial authorization – in 2019, but also with their counterparts in the Catalan Parliament's investigation commission.

On Tuesday, just as Vox's motion of censure begins, the delegation will meet with the president of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, as well as with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Generalitat, Meritxell Serret, and the councilor in the City Council of Barcelona Ernest Maragall (ERC candidate for mayor), all of them spied with Pegasus.

Before that, on Monday afternoon, they will meet with various Catalan regional deputies: Óscar Aparicio (PSC), Montserrat Vinyets and Xavier Pellicer (CUP), Lucas Ferro (En Comú Podem), Marta Vilalta and Josep Maria Jové (ERC), Albert Batet and Josep Rius (JxCAT) and Alberto Tarradas (Vox).

That same afternoon, the members of the commission will meet with three journalists from Spain's leading newspapers. Before, they will hold a meeting with Virginia Álvarez, head of the Human Rights area of Amnesty International, and with Patricia Goicoechea García, director in Spain of Rights International, as well as with a leader to be confirmed of the Civicismo Foundation, as stated in the latest draft of the agenda of the parliamentary delegation.

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  • Pegasus Case
  • European Parliament
  • Pedro Sanchez