Puigdemont certain to win Catalan elections, not troubled by temporary arrest

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has expressed his willingness to be detained, albeit temporarily, if he returned to Spain after winning the snap regional elections on 12 May, his lawyer Gonzalo Boye said in an interview with a local radio station.

Boye assured that the former Catalan president, who has been in self-exile in Belgium since 2017, is ready to return to Catalonia if the amnesty law promised by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) to pardon illegal acts committed by separatist leaders and their supporters between 2011 and 2023 comes into force.

“Puigdemont is willing to return and be arrested, but they will not be able to prevent him from becoming president” of the Catalan regional government, Boye told Catalan radio station RAC-1 on Friday. “He will take his decision to the end”, the lawyer added.

The former Catalan president announced his intention to return on X on Monday.

“The red thread that has marked my political commitment has remained indelible despite the adversities that I have had to face for eight years, especially hard for the last six and a half. We went into exile for the same reasons for which we will have to return”, Puigdemont said.

Puigdemont’s lawyer insisted that once the amnesty law is published in the official state gazette (BOE), the Spanish Supreme Court should lift the arrest warrant currently hanging over him and “a different legal framework” would be created to allow him to return.

The lawyer admitted, however, that there is a possibility that Puigdemont could be arrested, as a new arrest warrant cannot be ruled out in a terrorism case against him, but insisted that the Catalan president “is going to assume the consequences of his decisions”.

If the controversial amnesty law is finally approved by the Spanish parliament at the end of May or – at the latest – early June, the former Catalan president is confident that the national arrest warrant against him will be withdrawn and that he will be able to return to Spain as “a free man”.

This would mean that he would still not be able to return to Catalonia without risk of arrest during the election campaign, but the situation could change by the end of June when the investiture debate is scheduled to take place in the Catalan regional parliament.

However, everything will depend on how the Spanish courts decide to apply – or technically interpret – the new measure.

The separatist leader said on Monday that he would announce next Thursday at a press conference in Elna, in the south of France, whether he would stand as a candidate for his party, the right-wing separatist group Together for Catalonia (JxCat), in the May elections.

JxCat sources confirmed last weekend that their main candidate for the elections is Puigdemont.

A symbolic place to announce his possible return

Both Puigdemont and some 400 leaders or supporters of the Catalan separatist movement could benefit from the amnesty law that Sánchez has promised to JxCat and its left-wing rival, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), in exchange for their parliamentary support to stay in power.

The PSC would win the Catalan elections with 36 or 37 seats, while JxCat would overtake ERC as the second force with 32 or 33 MPs, one or two more than ERC (30 or 31), a poll published on Monday by La Razón revealed.

The Spanish People’s Party (Partido Popular/EPP), the main opposition force in Madrid, would come fourth with 12-13 seats, followed by the far-right VOX party, currently the third force in the Spanish parliament, with 9 or 10 deputies in the Catalan chamber, according to the poll.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)