The former president of the Catalan government Carles Puigdemont has announced he will return from exile in Belgium ahead of the regional parliament’s recall on Thursday – despite having an arrest warrant still open against him.
The conservative Catalan separatist leader has been living in the Belgian town of Waterloo since 2017, after escaping the Spanish authorities in the aftermath of the illegal 2017 referendum which declared Catalan independence.
At the end of July, Puigdemont expressed this commitment to return home during a meeting of his party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), in the French town of Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, 25km from the Spanish border.
On Wednesday, just a day before the investiture debate (where the new president of Catalonia will be voted on by MPs), the separatist leader confirmed his return to Barcelona.
"The Parliament of Catalonia has summoned all the deputies to the investiture debate of the next president of the Generalitat," Puigdemont wrote on social media. "I have to be there and I want to be there. That is why I have embarked on the return journey from exile."
While his party Junts per Catalunya lost the elections to the socialists – who did not achieve an absolutely majority – a binding agreement without Junts was made which would allow Catalan socialist Salvador Illa to become the new president.
Catalan leader in exile Carles Puigdemont pictured during a press conference, in Brussels, Tuesday 05 September 2023. Credit: Belga / James Arthur Gekiere
Yet the legal situation remains complicated due to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's amnesty law for Catalan separatist leaders involved in the events in 2017, which was passed on 30 May.
The law consists of removing the punishment attached to any crime committed between the 1 November 2011 and the 13 November 2023 linked to the independentist process. This includes the charge of serious disobedience to authority against Puigdemont, which was dropped.
However, the Supreme Court ruled on 1 July that the amnesty law cannot be applied to the charge of misuse of public funds, one of the charges also faced by Puigdemont. This means that his arrest warrant is still in effect, heightening the risk that he could be detained by Catalan police upon crossing the border from France into Spain for the first time since 2017.
If he is arrested, Catalan parties have voted to suspend Illa's investiture and seek a new date, but questions remain on what will happen on Thursday.
Back in July, he said that he hopes, if he returns, that "the authorities avoid what would be an unlawful, arbitrary detention". He believes he should be granted clemency.
