• Miral De Bruyne

  Spain Correspondent

All Spanish security officials have the authority and orders to arrest him. However, Carles Puigdemont has decided to return to Spain after nearly seven years of exile. He announced in a video on the X website that he will be present at the inauguration of the new regional president of Catalonia, the socialist Salvador Illa.

“I am convinced that there is no other path to normal democratic life than the end of political repression,” the separatist leader said in the video. That means he will not consider the situation in Catalonia normal again until what he calls “repression” ends. He believes he should not be arrested. It is not clear where the video was filmed. Puigdemont is pictured with the Catalan and European flags in the background.

Carles Puigdemont has been in exile in Brussels since October 2017. He probably fled to Belgium in the boot of a car, after the independence referendum that was banned by Spanish judges. He spent most of his time as a member of the European Parliament for his Junts per Catalunya party. But all the while he wanted to return to Spain as soon as possible.

At the end of last year, it seemed for a while that Puigdemont would be granted amnesty and thus be able to return. Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez struck a deal with two Catalan independence parties. In return for their support for his coalition, an amnesty law was passed, granting amnesty to Catalan separatists, among others, who played a role in the independence referendum.

But from the beginning it was not clear whether Puigdemont would also be subject to this law. Early last month it was decided that this was not the case. The court stated that the law did not apply to the crimes he was accused of committing.

He is accused of embezzling public funds because the Catalan government paid for an illegal independence referendum. As a result, the law does not apply to Puigdemont, and he can always be arrested if he sets foot on Spanish soil.

Early elections were held in Catalonia in May. Puigdemont then ran for party leader. Despite the arrest warrant, he promised to return to Catalonia if he won and attend his inauguration as regional president. He waited for the results in the southern French city of Perpignan.

But the result was disappointing for Catalan separatists: the Socialist Party won the elections. The separatist bloc has shrunk and the two main independence parties, ERC and Junts, no longer have a majority.

On Saturday, the PSC and the ERC, among others, signed a provisional agreement to install Salvador Illa as regional president. The same day, Puigdemont announced that he would attend the inauguration. It now appears that it could be hours before the separatist leader is arrested in Barcelona.

Because he called on his supporters and fellow party members to come to the entrance gate of the park where Parliament is located an hour before the opening. From Paseo Lluís he wants to walk to Parliament.

There is a high probability that he will be caught in front of the cameras and in front of his supporters, and just before the inauguration, the focus will not be on the new regional president, but on the former regional president.

If this scenario comes to pass, Illa’s inauguration will be postponed. Puigdemont himself could be taken to Madrid for questioning after his arrest. It’s a moment he has been postponing for years, but now it seems to have finally arrived.