“Long live free Catalonia”: After seven years in exile, Catalan independence leader Carles Puigdemont made a brief reappearance in front of a few thousand supporters in Barcelona, before fleeing the country again to avoid arrest. The leader of the 2017 unilateral secession attempt, who has since lived in self-imposed exile in Belgium, had announced his intention to participate in the vote in Parliament to swear in the region’s new president, but he still has an arrest warrant pending for alleged embezzlement, despite an amnesty granted by the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Amid applause from the crowd chanting “president, president,” Puigdemont took to the stage in front of Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf where he gave a short speech. “I don’t know how long it will be before we can see each other again, my friends, but whatever happens, when we meet again, I hope we can shout together what I said in my speech: ‘Long live free Catalonia,'” said the former Catalan president and member of Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia). “Today I have come to remind them that we are still here. We are still here because we have no right to leave,” he added.
After his speech, his supporters headed to Parliament, where the election of the new president of the regional executive, the socialist Salvador Illa, was taking place. Heavily criticized by the opposition, this amnesty law is at the center of numerous legal debates and, on July 1, the Supreme Court ruled that it applies only to some of the crimes of which the pro-independence leader is accused, who yesterday (Wednesday, August 7) once again denounced “the rebellious attitude of some Supreme Court judges”.
After months of negotiations since May’s elections, in which the Socialists out-voted Puigdemont’s party but failed to secure an overall majority, a coalition deal was finally reached last week. The agreement means Pedro Sanchez’s former health minister will now head the regional executive in Spain’s wealthy northeast. Salvador Illa will become the first Catalan executive president not from a nationalist party since 2010.
