Lluís Puig returns tomorrow to Catalonia after nine years of exile

BarcelonaThe Minister of Culture during the 1-O government, Lluís Puig, will return this Wednesday from exile, as reported by El Nacional and confirmed to ARA by sources close to the politician. Nine years had to pass for Puig to be able to return to the Principality, once the repression suffered by the independence movement following the 'Procés' has been overcome. The lifting of the arrest warrant issued by Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena has finally paved the way for his return to the country, although the judicial case still remains to be archived as part of the full application of the amnesty. A step that remains to be taken, but which will occur soon, just as it already happened this Tuesday with the full amnesty for former ministers Oriol Junqueras, Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa, and Jordi Turull.

Specifically, Puig will be able to take his seat in Parliament, given that throughout the entire legislature he has been able to carry out his representative duties, despite the remote difficulties. It is expected that the current Junts deputy will receive an honorary welcome in the Catalan chamber, where the Parliament's bureau is fully in favor of the amnesty law, as is the vast majority of the hemicycle. The former minister is, therefore, the first of the three independence leaders who were in exile to return, as former minister Toni Comín will come this weekend, although he will arrive in Madrid on Thursday to obtain his MEP certificate.

Even tonight, the association Cants de Llibertat in Terrassa has noted that this Wednesday at 8 in the morning there will be the official announcement of Puig's return and that he would attend the Cants de Llibertat in Terrassa at 7:30 in the evening. An event that the former minister has confirmed he will attend. Puig has spent the last five years of exile in Northern Catalonia, where he has carried out extensive cultural work within the Catalanist fabric, such as with the Casa Macià in Prats de Molló, where the former president of the Generalitat plotted a military incursion to liberate Catalonia, although it failed. In a recent interview with ARA, before the definitive judicial turn regarding the amnesty, he was pessimistic about his return and said he did not have "many expectations," but predicted that the return would be a catalyst: "I hope it is exciting that we are returning. For Junts it will be a victory, and also for the independence movement in general. If the return serves to start a new stage of the movement, fantastic; I will be much prouder to contribute to it," he defended.

The former Minister of Culture, who revealed that during his exile he has set foot in Catalonia several times through the gaps in the border between the Spanish and French states, was insistently pursued by the Supreme Court, with European arrest warrants that never went anywhere. Now that the embezzlement case has completely collapsed, the return from exile is already a reality.