The approved document emphasizes that the contacts of Russian officials with the environment of former President Puigdemont must be analyzed “in depth”
The European Union wants to shield itself against foreign interference, especially Russian interference, after the dangerous drift that the country has taken with the invasion of Ukraine. The European Parliament approved this Wednesday an initiative to investigate the Kremlin’s connections with disinformation campaigns and its relationship with numerous European political parties, including the Catalan independence movement. The report, which received the green light from the European Parliament with 552 votes in favor, 81 against and 60 abstentions, contains a reference to the contact of a group of Russian officials with a group of Catalan secessionist leaders.
The text called for “an in-depth investigation” into the “close and regular contacts” between the Vladimir Putin regime and the entourage of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, revealed by the American newspaper ‘The New York Times’, in September 2021. This was the most controversial point of the text, since from the group of the European Left -which includes, among others, Podemos, Izquierda Unida and EH Bildu- an amendment was presented to eliminate the reference to Catalan secessionism.
This modification was proposed by the Irish MEP Clare Daly, a well-known supporter of the Catalan independence movement and who has already promoted including the names of Catalan politicians in prison in a report on Human Rights in the EU. Although the amendment ultimately failed, with only 97 votes in favour, it received the support of Spanish MEPs Izaskun Bilbao (PNV), Pernando Barrena (EH Bildu), Manu Pineda and Sira Rego, from Izquierda Unida; Antoni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Carles Puigdemont (JuntsXCAT); Diana Riba i Giner and Jordi Solé, from ERC. Others like Eugenia Rodríguez Palop and Idoia Villanueva (Podemos) and Miguel Urbán Crespo, from Anticapitalistas, decided to abstain.
Links with Salvini
In addition to the Catalan leader, the report focuses on the Kremlin’s connections with the Brexit Party in the United Kingdom, the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Lega Nord Italiana, the party of the populist Matteo Salvini. The latter was one of the greatest defenders of the Russian president in Europe and came to pose with a t-shirt with the image of Putin in Red Square in Moscow and in the European Parliament.
The document approved this Wednesday in the European Parliament also asks to investigate Russian manipulation attempts in different democratic processes “in depth”, including the ‘Brexit’ referendum or the French presidential elections of 2017. Russia’s attempts to “exploit any issue to promote internal instability (…) they have been constant”, highlights the text. For this reason, the European Parliament advises monitoring the “inappropriate” relations of political formations with Moscow and prohibiting foreign financing of European parties.
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