"We are brothers": full stop to nine years far from home

BarcelonaNow only the president of the 1-O, Carles Puigdemont, is missing. The exile ends nine years after several pro-independence leaders chose this path to respond to the State's repression. Six of the seven exiles have already returned, with former ministers Lluís Puig and Toni Comín having just arrived thanks to the lifting of the arrest warrants. In recent years, the former secretary general of ERC Marta Rovira, former minister Meritxell Serret, former CUP deputy Anna Gabriel, and former minister Clara Ponsatí have also been able to free themselves from exile. Nine years later, what is the balance sheet of the exile?

Those who were members of the 1-O government went into exile together after the weekend of the unilateral declaration of independence on October 27, while Gabriel and Rovira went in 2018 due to the criminal proceedings opened against them.

Being an immigrant without being able to return

"I have been in exile for an eighth of my life," summarizes Puig in conversation with ARA. "The first four years were very hard," he states. "I had to look for housing, open a bank account, or find a parking space," he adds. But there is one thing that marked him from his time in the Belgian capital, before he moved to Northern Catalonia for the last five years: "In Brussels, there is a huge number of homeless people on the streets, even in the middle of winter, and sometimes I would walk home and give them sausages, cookies, and all kinds of food that had been given to me by people who came to visit me." And another revealing anecdote: "You realize that if it is complicated for people from the European Union, for those who are from outside and have black skin, it is even more so," he explains.

The most poignant thing for him was "accompanying family and friends" to the airport when they left. The President of the Parliament, Josep Rull, also remembered how he had experienced the death of his parents from exile, but also the birth of his granddaughter. With exile, however, the repressed "stuck together." "Especially with the President and Comín, we have been friends. We often met for dinner or to have a good Belgian beer," he comments. But he also remembers "the countless visits to the House of the Republic." A collaborator with the Catalan House of Brussels, he worked on behalf of the Department of Culture and carried out intense cultural activity, which he has continued in Roussillon, with projects like Casa Macià. "We have never felt alone," he maintains. Now he wants to serve as a deputy and "travel the country from top to bottom."

For his part, Comín is finishing a book and summarizes the exile to this newspaper as follows: "When we arrived in Brussels, we planned a political battle and to return free, but also a personal battle, that we had to protect the right to be happy," he defends. He sees this fight as "won," despite the "moments of pain." Regarding the relationship of the exiles, he believes they are "brothers in exile," an "expression of President Puigdemont." "We have lived through very hard situations, my brother and mother have died, the President's parents have died..." he recalls. In addition to the "shared and very absorbing work" in the Eurochamber and the Council of the Republic with the former president.

Throughout all this time he has incorporated the keys to the Leuven house into the keychain of his Barcelona home, in a sort of nine-year provisionality, which he has shared with his daughter. For this reason, he wishes to return to his home in the Catalan capital, also to Castellterçol –where he has a family connection– and to the monastery of Poblet. In the stage he is opening as an MEP, he intends to defend self-determination and row against "the great threat of the extreme right".

The meaning of exile

Serret still remembers to this newspaper how she left "all of a sudden without having foreseen it much". After leaving with the members of the Government, she thought about "returning", but when the rest of the ministers were imprisoned, she decided to stay. "The adaptation was like that of any migrant", helped by "the Catalan community" in Belgium, which gave them a hand with practical things like housing. "At the beginning the accommodation was provisional, but the first rental was for an apartment for six months because it was very difficult for me psychologically for it to go any further". She returned on March 11, 2021, and even served as a minister again while the Spanish courts pursued her for disobedience. Now she does not plan to return to the political front line.

In turn, Gabriel comments to ARA that the CUP had foreseen the exile scenario before 1-O and that she decided to go to Switzerland "when it was leaked" that she would be charged in the summer of 2018. It struck her that there were "many people organized to go to Geneva to visit her every weekend", although "the hardest moment" was political: "When everything is normalizing and the will to confront the State is lost, I thought that it no longer made sense and I was not able to contribute anything", she stresses, and recalls that she had to "support from the outside what was being done on the inside". On July 19, 2022, she returned from exile, presenting herself in Madrid just like Serret. From Geneva, she cultivated a "good personal relationship" with the exiles and experienced discomfort with the language and early difficulties in "looking for papers". Regarding a hypothetical return to the front line, she asserts that she is "locally active": "I am part of a collective political space and if responsibilities were entrusted to me again, I would exercise them, if it is considered so".

Rovira made the decision to leave for exile at her home, a few hours before she had to appear before the Supreme Court in March 2018. "It was a personal decision," she explains to this newspaper. There are dates she does not forget, like the first Christmas or the one three years ago, when the judge reactivated the Tsunami Democràtic case and several other activists opted for the path of exile. A few months later, however, the case was archived and she returned to Catalonia in July 2024. After stepping aside at ERC, her life has remained in Geneva, where her daughter is rooted after so many years. She is now a consultant for international affairs such as conflict resolution and peace, human rights, and democracy. "Exile was a form of struggle and resistance, and we also turned it into an opportunity as a family," she concludes.

Ponsatí also returned to Catalonia in April 2023, and denounced "the systematic violation of our rights." "Stay in exile forever? I will take advantage of every space of freedom to denounce the violation of rights," she stated.