Catalonia

There were mixed feelings among British MEPs this week as they sat in Strasbourg for the final time before Brexit. But there was delight among Catalan separatists after Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comin were finally allowed to take their seats.

Catalonia emergency services have called the blast a 'chemical accident'

Announcements and parliamentary procedure will follow Spain's request to lift immunity.

Catalan separatist leaders Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comin vowed to push their secessionist cause onto Europe’s agenda as they took up their seats in Strasbourg, despite facing an arrest warrant in Spain.

Now fully accredited MEPS, they are here to attend the first plenary of the year. After expressing his joy, Carles Puigdemont told the press the Catalan independence question was a European issue.

Spainish Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez must wait yet again before he can move forward with a coalition government.

The 0-0 game was overshadowed by clashes between Catalan independence protestors and police outside Barcelona's Nou Camp.

Oriol Junqueras, former Vice President of Catalonia, became a Member of the European Parliament as soon as he was elected – so says the EU's top court in Luxembourg. That means he enjoyed parliamentary immunity from that moment on, even if he was in pre-trial detention.

The pro-independence Esquerra Republicana party, which Oriol Junqueras leads, called for his "immediate release" from jailed.

Spanish winemakers are packing up their vines and heading for the hills. Euronews correspondent Jaime Velazquez has been to a vineyard near Barcelona to find out why.

The advice from Advocate General Maciej Szpunar is a boost for the Catalan separatist movement and Oriol Junqueras, who was voted into the European Parliament in May despite being detained in Spain since 2017 after an illegal independence referendum.

Police were dispersing hundreds of Catalan pro-independence demonstrators who had been blocking a major road link that connects the Spanish region with France for nearly 24 hours.

Political leaders have made a final appeal to voters before Sunday's snap election that looks unlikely to resolve Spain's parliamentary gridlock.

Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, leader of the Socialists, failed to put together a workable coalition following the last election, held only months ago in April of this year.