The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, says that if the European Court of Justice (ECJ) concludes that Catalonia’s exiled president Carles Puigdemont and minister Toni Comín should be recognized as MEPs, the chamber will accept the sentence. The ECJ must react to the pre-judicial case presented by the defense of Catalan political prisoner and elected MEP Oriol Junqueras.

Sassoli made this statement during the press conference to evaluate the hearings of the candidates for new Commissioners of the European Commission.

“We will apply the law,” Sassoli replied when asked about the letter that the lawyers of Puigdemont and Comín have sent to him, asking him to recognize them provisionally. This is also the position of the EU court advocate.

So far, the European Parliament and its legal services have argued that they could not recognize Junqueras, Puigdemont and Comín as MEPs because they were not on the final list sent by Spain. They were not included in the list because they did not swear the Spanish constitution, although they did appear in the previous list of proclamation of results published in the Spanish official BOE.