The Spanish government, on Puigdemont: "He could return today if he wanted to"

Barcelona / MadridAfter the Constitutional Court's (TC) endorsement of the amnesty for the leaders of the 'Procés', all eyes are on former president Carles Puigdemont. His return to Catalonia, after nine years of exile, wavers between imminence and waiting for the opportune political moment, and it is currently unknown whether he will make it coincide with the November 29th general election campaign or not. Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena, however, has already lifted the arrest warrant, and the Spanish government points out that this means the green light for the former president's return. "Puigdemont could return today if he wanted to," stated the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, in statements to SER this morning. "It is a decision that is up to him," he added.

In his appearance this Tuesday after the TC endorsed the amnesty, Puigdemont did not clarify when and how he intends to return, but his lawyer has explained that, at the very least, he will wait for the case against him to be archived, which could take several weeks. "There is no specific date for the return because we are waiting for the Supreme Court to definitively close the case," the lawyer said in statements to 3Cat. For now, the Constitutional Court has already officially communicated its ruling to the Supreme Court, in which it orders the high court to "urgently" apply the amnesty to embezzlement.

Now it will be Llarena who must issue the order concluding the summary of the case and send it to the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court presided over by Andrés Martínez-Arrieta, which also includes Manuel Marchena. And it will be them who, after hearing the parties -the defenses, the Prosecutor's Office, the State Attorney's Office, and Vox-, will order the dismissal of the investigation due to the application of the amnesty to Puigdemont and former ministers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig. An outcome that the Moncloa already takes for granted. "There was a part of the judiciary that spoke out against the amnesty law [...] From there on, the rule of law has worked. Time has put everything in its place," Bolaños claimed.

As for the convicted former ministers, the ball is in Manuel Marchena's court. The judge who presided over the Procés trial will have to draft the resolution to apply the amnesty to Dolors Bassa and will have to decide whether to propose extending it to the rest of the convicted individuals or wait for the rulings on the amparo appeals of Jordi Turull, Oriol Junqueras, and Raül Romeva to arrive individually. Mind you, he will first give the parties a five-day period to state their positions. Pablo Llarena, for example, did not need the ruling on Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig to lift his arrest warrants. Reliable sources from the Supreme Court consulted by ARA make it clear that the disqualification penalty, at least for the former Minister of Labor, Social Affairs and Families, “will certainly be lifted” before Monday, October 26, which is the deadline for submitting candidacies for the 29-N election.

However, in this morning's interview, Minister Bolaños boasted about the effects that, in his view, the amnesty has had, which he insisted was not directed at any "person" in particular. According to him, thanks to "brave" and "highly contested" measures like this one, the Spanish government has achieved "normalization" in Catalonia after the turbulent years of the Procés. "Normalization is absolute," he went as far as to say, and he brandished the latest CIS barometer, which points out that only "0.2% of the population considers the potential independence of Catalonia a problem." "This problem no longer exists, and we have achieved it, the government of Pedro Sánchez," he said.