Catalonia’s exiled separatist leader Carles Puigdemont said on Wednesday he was on his way back to Spain, a day before he plans to attend an investiture vote in the regional parliament there despite the threat of arrest.
He is due to attend the investiture vote in Barcelona to pick a new Catalan leader at 10:00 am (0800 GMT).
Just an hour before that, his hardline separatist JxCAT party, has scheduled a welcome ceremony for Puigdemont outside Catalonia’s regional parliament in Barcelona.
If Puigdemont is arrested over his role in Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence push, the investiture vote could be called off.
“In normal democratic conditions, for an MP like me to announce his intention to attend that session would be unnecessary, it would be irrelevant,” Puigdemont said in a video posted on social network X.
“But ours are not normal democratic conditions.
“First, because we are facing a long persecution for having allowed Catalans to vote in the self-determination referendum.
“And secondly, because the Supreme Court refuses to obey the amnesty law approved and in force,” he added.
“This challenge must be answered and confronted. That is why we have taken our return journey from exile.”
Puigdemont headed the regional government of Catalonia in 2017 when it pushed ahead with an illegal secession referendum. That was followed by a short-lived declaration of independence before the authorities in Madrid moved in to shut it down.
Puigdemont fled abroad shortly after to avoid prosecution but is still wanted by Spain’s justice system.
Spain’s Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that an amnesty law for Catalan separatists that came into force earlier this year would not fully apply to him.
“I am convinced that there is no other path to democratic normality than the end of political repression, an end that is contemplated in the letter and spirit of the amnesty law,” Puigdemont added in the video, as he stood in front of a Catalan and a European Union flag.
“We cannot remain silent in the face of the attitude of rebellion in which some judges of the Supreme Court have indulged,” he added.
The head of Spain’s ruling Socialists in Catalonia, former health minister Salvador Illa, is due to be elected as the region’s new leader during Thursday’s investiture vote.
He has secured the backing of a smaller far-left party and the more moderate, leftist Catalan separatist party ERC.