The Catalan pro-independence leader, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Waterloo for nine years, hailed the Supreme Court's move to lift his arrest warrant over alleged embezzlement linked to the 'procés'.
The former president of the Catalan regional government, Carles Puigdemont, who, thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court, can now return to Spain after nine years on the run from justice, on Tuesday celebrated the end of the court case hanging over him but warned that the amnesty he has been granted "is not the solution" to the independence aspirations of part of the Catalan population.
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Talking at a brief press conference in the Belgian town of Waterloo, where Puigdemont has lived since leaving Spain after an arrest warrant was issued against him for his role in organising the 1 October 2017 referendum, he declared: "As far as relations between Catalonia and Spain are concerned, nothing is being resolved today."
The leader of Junts per Catalunya lamented that the legal process he has faced in Spain since then amounts to "an improper use of judicial powers" and argued that "it is typical of authoritarian regimes and therefore unacceptable in a European democracy".
The former head of the Catalan government left the country after Catalonia's unilateral declaration of independence and the triggering of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution. However, the passage of the amnesty law in 2024 opened the door to his possible return.
Even so, until now, Puigdemont risked arrest if he returned to Spain, as the embezzlement warrant remained in force. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena lifted the arrest warrant after the Constitutional Court endorsed the application of the amnesty law to the offence of embezzlement.
The court ruled in response to an appeal lodged by former Catalan minister Dolours Bassa, after the Supreme Court had refused to apply the amnesty to the embezzlement charge in her case.
The underlying question was whether the use of public money to fund the independence referendum could be covered by the amnesty law. The Supreme Court had ruled that it could not, on the grounds that there had been a personal financial benefit for those driving the vote. The Constitutional Court, by contrast, rejected that interpretation.
In his statement, the pro-independence leader, who has not revealed when he plans to return to Spain, said he decided "to go into exile in order to do politics" with the aim of defending the rights of Catalan citizens who, in his view, were "under threat" from article 155, and argued that the Constitutional Court's decision represents "a disavowal of the repression" to which some of those responsible for the 'procés' have been subjected.