Puigdemont finalizes "two or three scenarios" for his return: "I want to breathe the country"

BarcelonaFormer President of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont wants to "immerse himself in the reality" of Catalonia if he returns from exile, something that "remains to be seen," he admits in an interview with the British newspaper The Sunday Times. The leader of Junts has explained that he wants to return to "breathe, touch, and listen" to the country when he sets foot there again, as "Catalonia is not the same" as it was when he left nine years ago. Puigdemont foresees "two or three scenarios" for his first steps in the event of a return, although he has not given further details.

During the interview, he expressed that when he left for Belgium he was prepared to spend the rest of his life in exile and still is. "I did not know how long I would be in exile, but I was prepared to spend my whole life there. And if I have to spend my whole life like this, I am prepared to do so," he added. Puigdemont has stressed that he does not regret anything he did and that October 1st will go down in history: "We defeated Spain democratically," he asserted.

Corruption cases in the State

On the other hand, the president of Junts has described the various corruption cases surrounding Pedro Sánchez's government as "structural" and "systemic". However, he believes that the goal of pursuing them "is not to clean up the system, it is to attack whoever is governing". In this sense, he believes that now the president of the Spanish executive is the one suffering "evident abuses" by the justice system. "What they have done to his wife is abusive," he adds, and also clarifies that there are indeed grounds for some of the open cases.

Regarding the Ceuta crisis, Puigdemont has said that Spain will never propose a referendum on the future of Ceuta "for fear" of a similar style vote in Catalonia. And he asks himself "what sense does it make" for an EU country to have two cities enclaved in Morocco. "If you look at it from a Moroccan perspective, this is undoubtedly a wound," he adds. Regarding the Spanish government's position on Palestine, the pro-independence leader has no doubt that the goal is to obtain results in the internal political sphere. "It is not honest, he does it for political marketing," he stated.