Toni Comín and Lluís Puig resume Catalan political activity after nine years of exile

BarcelonaNew step towards the normalization of Catalan political life after the repression of the Process. Lluís Puig and Toni Comín are participating this Monday in the Junts executive meeting in Barcelona after having returned in recent days to Catalonia and having put an end to nine years of exile. The meeting, scheduled for first thing this morning, precedes the press conference that the Junts candidate for Barcelona in the November 29th general elections, Miriam Nogueras, will offer at 12 o'clock at the party headquarters.

Before the executive meeting, the two party members were received at the doors of the party headquarters amidst applause and shouts of independence, in a delegation led by Nogueras and the President of the Parliament, Josep Rull. The welcome, marked by the emotion of the return, ended with the unfurling of a banner on the building's facade with the message «Welcome back home!».

The return of the two former ministers marks a new chapter in the resumption of political activity following the application of the amnesty law. Last Friday, Puig returned to Parliament in an institutional reception led by the president of the chamber, Josep Rull, in which he reaffirmed his pro-independence commitment and denounced that he had been expelled "illegitimately" from the institution. The former Minister of Culture removed the yellow ribbon from his seat and held it up as a sign of victory.

Comín, for his part, crossed this Sunday on foot the border between France and Catalonia via the Coll dels Belitres, after having spent nine years in Belgium. The former Minister of Health arrived in Portbou accompanied by family, friends, and representatives of the independence movement, in a symbolic walk that evoked the republican exile of 1939. During the event, he claimed the return as a political victory, while warning that it was not "the definitive victory".

Before returning to Catalonia, Comín had traveled to Madrid on Thursday to swear in the Constitution and obtain the MEP certificate, a step that will allow him to resume parliamentary activity in Brussels. Both he and Puig have been able to return without the risk of being arrested by the Spanish authorities, within the framework of the implementation of the amnesty.