Ben Pawlowski
CARLES Puigdemont, the former Catalan president, has revealed his intention to return to Spain this week after seven years of self-imposed exile in Belgium.
In a video posted on X, Puigdemont confirmed he will make the journey to Catalunya to participate in the investiture debate of Salvador Illa, a Socialist ally of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who is set to be named as the region’s first pro-unity president in 14 years.
Illa, a former national health minister, won the most seats in May’s regional election, but fell well short of the 68 required to command a majority within the regional chamber, known as the Generalitat.
After a frantic summer of negotiations, Illa finally struck a deal with the pro-independence, left wing Esquerra Republicana (ERC), who agreed to support his investiture in exchange for several concessions, including an agreement for Catalunya to assume ‘100% responsibility’ for the collection of taxes within the region, ending what many Catalans view as an unjust fiscal system whereby the region, one of Spain’s most affluent, effectively subsidises public services elsewhere.
Sánchez, who has pursued a more conciliatory approach towards the Catalan question than his predecessors from the conservative Partido Popular (PP), described the deal as ‘good news’ for Spain and a ‘step towards federalisation’.
During the election campaign Puigdemont, who leads the separatist Junts per Catalunya party which came second in the regional election, vowed to return to Catalunya to participate in the investiture debate, which takes place this Thursday.
However, Puigdemont’s return across the border will be fraught with danger as Spanish authorities still hold an arrest warrant for the former MEP after the nation’s Supreme Court judged that the controversial amnesty law did not apply to alleged crimes of the misuse of public funds.
The amnesty law, approved earlier this year, had formed part of an agreement which saw Puigdemont’s Junts party prop up Sanchez’s government in the national congress in exchange for the quashing of criminal charges against leaders involved in the Catalan separatist movement.
Puigdemont infamously fled Spain hidden in the boot of a car after organising the botched 2017 Catalan independence referendum, which was deemed illegal, and unilaterally declaring Catalunya as an independent state, provoking Spain’s most significant political crisis since the Franco dictatorship.
Upon his return, Puigdemont faces the very serious risk of arrest, which would likely itself provoke a new crisis, potentially derailing Illa’s investiture, sparking mass protests and causing a fresh headache for Sánchez.
The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, has said he will ask the parliamentary speaker, who himself spent three years in prison for his role in the failed independence bid, to suspend the investiture debate if Puigdemont is arrested.
Turull has also suggested that such a move could jeopardise Junts’ support for Sánchez’s Socialists in Madrid. “We will act accordingly”, he warned.
Officials from the ERC, the party on which Illa’s investiture depends, have also hinted that an arrest could force them to reconsider their support given that only 53.5% of the party’s rank-and-file members voted to endorse the pact.
