Carles Puigdemont returns to Spain from exile

Seven years after his escape, Catalan independence supporter Carles Puigdemont has returned to Spain despite the threat of arrest. He is on his way back to his homeland, Puigdemont announced on Wednesday via video on the online service X. On Thursday, despite the possible arrest, he plans to attend a session of the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona to appoint a new regional president.

The investiture of the new Catalan regional president is scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. The leading candidate is the former health minister and socialist leader Salvador Illa. Before the meeting, Puigdemont’s party Juntos per Catalunya (JxCat) has planned a welcoming ceremony for its ex-boss and former regional president in front of the parliament building.

Puigdemont is threatened with arrest in Spain for his failed attempt in 2017 to separate Catalonia from Spain. Puigdemont’s Junts party has so far secured a majority for Sanchez’s government in the national parliament in Madrid. It is questionable whether Junts will continue to support the minority government if Puigdemont is arrested.

Carles Puigdemont – combative as ever

“Under normal democratic conditions, it would be unnecessary and irrelevant for a member of parliament like me to announce his intention to attend this session,” Puigdemont said in the recording released on Wednesday, in which he was seen in front of a Catalan and an EU flag. But “normal democratic conditions” do not prevail in Spain.

On the one hand, supporters of Catalan independence face “a long persecution” because of their initiative for a referendum on Catalonia’s secession from Spain, which has been banned by the courts, said Puigdemont. On the other hand, the country’s Supreme Court is refusing “to comply with the amnesty law that has been passed and entered into force.”

This “challenge” must be “answered and overcome,” the Catalan politician continued. “That is why we have started the journey back from exile.” In view of the “rebellious attitude of some judges of the Supreme Court,” he and his colleagues “cannot remain silent.”

Amnesty for everyone except Puigdemont

At the beginning of July, Spain’s highest court dropped the “terrorism” case against Puigdemont due to formal errors. However, the Spanish judiciary is also prosecuting the independence activist for embezzlement of funds and on charges of high treason.

A few days earlier, despite the controversial amnesty law, the Supreme Court had denied Puigdemont an exemption from punishment on the grounds of embezzlement and left in force the arrest warrant issued against him in 2017. Puigdemont appealed against this decision.

The amnesty was intended to benefit Catalan activists who were persecuted by the Spanish judiciary after Catalonia’s failed attempt to secede in 2017. Puigdemont was the leading initiator of the referendum at the time, which plunged the country into one of its most serious political crises. After fleeing into exile, Puigdemont was elected as a member of the European Parliament in 2019. He most recently lived in Belgium.

The approval of the amnesty law was a prerequisite for independence supporters in the parliament in Madrid to allow the socialist Pedro Sánchez to serve a second term as Spain’s head of government in November.