Lluís Puig reveals that he has been in Catalonia several times in the last years: "I have stepped on the Ripollès, the Garrotxa and the Empordà"

BarcelonaThe fleeting appearance of Carles Puigdemont in Barcelona on August 8, 2024, during Salvador Illa's investiture, has not been the only visit by the exiles to Catalonia in recent years. Despite the arrest warrant that hung over them, and which has now been lifted by judge Pablo Llarena, the former minister Lluís Puig also dared to step on Catalan soil on several occasions. He revealed this on Wednesday in an interview with RAC1, in which he assured that in the last 9 years he has visited "lands of the Ripollès, the Garrotxa, and the Empordà, but discreetly".

After confessing to being "moved and optimistic" about the "triumph" that the Constitutional Court's endorsement of the amnesty represents, the head of Culture of the 1-O Government explained details of his incursions from Northern Catalonia, where he currently lives. "Seeing that the act was crossing a line, which in many of these places are fences so that the cows do not change sides... It didn't cause me anything special either," he said. "Nature is open," he added. He did admit, however, that he has never participated in "specific acts or activities" nor has he visited his home in Terrassa.

Puig said that they have never caught him, although he explained a risky situation at the Col d'Ares, on the occasion of the arrival of the Sant Joan flame. "There is no border fence, but there the asphalt changes color on the road. Chatting and walking with people, I was hundreds of meters inside the side from where they could pursue me, and a Mossos d'Esquadra car arrived, which I think did not see me. I quietly went back towards the color of the asphalt that was friendly to me," he recounted.

Although Llarena has now lifted the arrest warrant that was hanging over him, Puig has not mapped out an imminent definitive return to Catalonia. "I have to organize myself and prepare to see at what moment [...]. From Northern Catalonia, I am home in two hours. The journey itself is not complicated, but the exact moment is," he said, adding that surely both he and Puigdemont and Comín have "different speeds" for the return. Once he does so, however, he acknowledged that he is eager to occupy his seat in Parliament as a deputy for Junts: "And remove the yellow ribbon that my colleagues, scrupulously and without ever forgetting, place for me in the plenary hall," he said. "I am eager to fulfill this democratic mandate," he added.

The former minister also assured that the day he returns to enter the Catalan chamber he intends to greet President Salvador Illa. "He is the president of my country. This human fact is above all else, and of course institutional respect," he argued. Puig, in fact, recalled the "famous" meeting between him and the socialist leader in Brussels in November 2023, when they exchanged a few words and Illa became emotional. "It was a very correct, human, and affable greeting," recalled Puig.