(Madrid) Catalan independence activist Carles Puigdemont, in exile since 2017, “promised” on Saturday to return to Spain to participate in the investiture debate for the next president of Catalonia, despite the arrest warrant issued against him.
“That’s what I promised to do and that’s what we’re going to do. […]”So my obligation is to go to the (Catalan) Parliament if there is an investiture debate. I will be there,” Puigdemont said at a meeting of his party, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), in the French town of Amélie-les-Bains–Palalda, 25 km from the Spanish border.
The former Catalan president said he hoped that if he returned, “the authorities would avoid what would be an illegal detention, an arbitrary detention.” He said he should be granted a pardon.
It was the first time that Mr Puigdemont, who fled Catalonia’s failed 2017 secession attempt to escape Spanish justice, had spoken publicly since Spain’s Supreme Court rejected his request on 1er July, to benefit from the amnesty law for Catalan separatists.
Accused of embezzlement and under investigation for high treason, Mr Puigdemont could be arrested if he returns to Spain.
The decision of the Supreme Court had the effect of a thunderclap, since the amnesty law, fiercely negotiated to allow Pedro Sánchez to remain in power, was to concern him first and foremost.
The socialists won a clear victory in the regional elections in Catalonia in mid-May, where Mr Puigdemont’s independentists lost their majority.
Salvador Illa, the socialist candidate for the presidency of the region, who remains far from the majority, is negotiating with the other major pro-independence party ERC (Republican Left of Catalonia), but without any guarantee of success.
If the next Catalan president is not sworn in by August 26, new elections will be called, possibly in October.
“There will be no more electoral campaign in exile,” said Mr Puigdemont, who campaigned in the last elections from the south of France.
“No, the next electoral campaigns will take place there (in Catalonia) and I will be there,” he insisted.