Nine years later, Lluís Puig returned yesterday to his city, Terrassa, where he was received with tears of emotion by the people of Terrassa who every day, for more than 3,000 days, have met in the evening to sing for freedom. Oriol Junqueras and Raül Romeva were also honored in Sant Vicenç dels Horts. Puig will go to Parliament this afternoon and will sit in his seat, until now occupied by a yellow ribbon. The discourse of those amnestied oscillated between returning to where we were and the idea that they have won a battle against Spain. Is that so?

The other day Feijóo announced that he would build a million apartments thanks to the fact that, with a government of his, there would be “less bureaucracy”, but instead of less bureaucracy, he said “less democracy”. He often does not know how to interpret what he is reading. The other day he said that he would only address the hardworking people and not the freeloaders, and when saying “freeloaders” (“scammers”) he did this. These slips make him meme fodder, and deepen the evidence that the personality of the favorite candidate in the polls to preside over Spain does not measure up, but not because he is often wrong, but because he is a politician from a past era.

Pablo Llarena assumes that the Supreme Court is bound to apply the amnesty to Carles Puigdemont, but resists facilitating it. It was expected that this week the investigating judge would conclude the summary proceedings and refer the case against the former President of the Generalitat and the former ministers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig to the trial court of the Procés so that Manuel Marchena could apply the total and definitive amnesty to the exiles – although he first still had to grant a five-day period for the parties to pronounce themselves again–. These are the two resolutions missing for the Supreme Court to put an end to the judicial persecution of Puigdemont. However, the investigator has slowed down the path and has limited himself to dismissing the appeal that Vox filed against the lifting of the arrest warrants that the Supreme Court issued after the Constitutional Court endorsed the amnesty in cases of embezzlement. Llarena thus delays the outcome: he takes one more step, but avoids taking the decisive step, which will have to come in the next few days.

Last season, in the Sequence diagram of La 2 Cat, Jordi Basté interviewed Salvador Illa just after he returned from his sick leave. This time, the journalist opened the season by visiting Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo just before returning to Catalonia. Without a doubt, he has the gift of timing. “Should I address you as ‘tu’ or ‘vostè’?”, the presenter asked him as soon as he opened the door. He had no choice but to answer “tu”. Answering “vostè” would seem like a symptom of haughtiness. But in journalistic contexts, both with presidents and official positions, the you should be an unquestionable formula. No matter how personal you want the interview to be, what brings the journalist there is the institutional figure. Puigdemont opened the door wearing a tailored suit, tie, stiff-collared shirt, and the lapel pin. And he made it very clear that that attire had become an important symbolic element for him, to maintain the solemnity of the institution he represented, despite being in exile. Even anticipating a possible arrest, that clothing preserved the dignity of his office. No matter how personal or informal the interview was, and even if they were talking in the kitchen, losing the you is one more symptom of how values are distorted: decorum is also a way of recognizing the importance of what is being done. Using the informal 'tú' does not in any case imply a loss of respect, but the formal 'usted' respects that institutional awareness that Puigdemont seemed not to want to lose even on that occasion. Although Basté always prioritizes showing the audience the level of trust with the guest, the use of you should not affect the closeness in the relationship.

The former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont confirmed this Thursday in an interview on the program Pla seqüènciaon La 2 Cat that he will not want to assume the position of leader of the opposition in Parliament when he returns to Catalonia. "I could not act as such, but, on the other hand, even if I could, it seems to me that it is not correct for someone who has been president of the Generalitat and has held the presidency, which is an institution, to then have to control the president, whoever it may be," he argued throughout the interview, recorded after the judicial endorsement of the amnesty.

Today marks 86 years since President Lluís Companys was executed by the Spanish army at Montjuïc Castle, in Barcelona.

For days now, Carles Puigdemont's inner circle has been leaning towards the idea that, despite the judicial endorsement of the amnesty and the lifting of the arrest warrant against him, the former president should not return to Catalonia until after the November 29th elections. This was indicated by various voices in ARA, and this Tuesday the lawyer for the Junts leader, Gonzalo Boye, was clear on this point: "He will not return in the middle of the election campaign, which is what the PSOE would want," he said in statements to Catalunya Ràdio.

Spanish politics has stages of incomparable turmoil. These days the acceleration has reached a degree of excitement that makes one fear for the coronary health of governments, politicians, propagandists, and believing citizens in general. Trying to understand the world that surrounds us in full acceleration and once we have exhausted the quotes from the cynic Machiavelli, the blessed Rousseau, the provocateur Nietzsche, and the brave Arendt, we are only left to surrender ourselves to the wisdom of James Bond. Politics today responds to the “shaken, not stirred” (shaken, not stirred) of yet another Martini that we know cannot end well.

The cause-effect relationship between the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal and the early call for elections by Pedro Sánchez has been evident to everyone, even though this contradicted all the times he had assured that we would go to the polls next year. The maneuver began to be foreseen from the moment the now-famous two housing decrees were brought to Congress hastily so that Congress would validate them and Sánchez would not lose momentum and could feel as his own the popular indignation that occurred and the general strike that will result from it.

1. Pedro Sánchez arrived at Moncloa through a motion of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy which, at the last moment, was swayed by Carles Puigdemont's PDECAT. Now Pedro Sánchez has resigned ahead of time because Junts struck down his two housing decrees and left him against the ropes in Congress. In the first case, Puigdemont was initially in favor of abstention. He did not view giving the presidency to Sánchez in exchange for nothing favorably, when the PSOE had also gone all out against the 'Procés'. With an abstention from the PDECAT, Rajoy would have been saved, and the Popular Party members were confident that it would be so. By keeping the decision to themselves until the end, with that tactical maneuver that the heirs of Convergència master so well, at the very last instant their eight deputies voted in favor of the motion and there was the fastest change of government in the history of Spain. Rajoy left, Sánchez entered, and until today.

Toni Comín avoids setting a date for his return to Catalonia, but assures that there is "a certain urgency" so that he can collect his MEP certificate – for which he must swear the Constitution at the Congress – and start exercising as a representative of Junts in the European Parliament. In the first public appearance he makes after the application of the amnesty to the pro-independence leaders, the elected MEP has celebrated what he considers "a great political victory for the independence movement and for all democrats". He has said that the Spanish state has "had to admit they were right", but has warned that the amnesty "is not the final victory": "We want many more", he added.

It has rained a lot these days, and guess which service went down this morning: Rodalies. Obviously, when I say that Rodalies is not working, I mean that even what usually functions is not working. The rains caused a slope to collapse, and the train drivers' union refused to work today for safety reasons. And since the Government, Renfe, and Adif fail every day to inform passengers, this morning thousands of users found themselves without trains and, in many cases, without a reinforcement bus service. All the screens at Sants said was that there was no service "due to external causes" (which were the train drivers).

Following 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 right political moment, and right now it is unknown whether he will make it coincide with the general election campaign on November 29th or not. Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena, however, has already lifted the arrest warrant that was against him, although several prominent figures from the former head of government's circle have publicly expressed that Puigdemont should return after the elections. A different view from the Spanish government, which reminds him that he has the green light for an immediate return: "Puigdemont could return today if he wanted to," stated the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, this morning in statements to SER. "It is a decision that is up to him," he added. For the moment, the Government has indeed granted Puigdemont's request for the office he holds as former president, which was located at Palau Centelles in Barcelona, to be moved to premises on Carrer Dr. Roux, 51-63, which are owned by the Generalitat, as reported by El País and confirmed by ARA.

Not even the best screenwriter could have foreseen it better. Three years after the amnesty gave Pedro Sánchez another term, the amnesty has also put an end to it. The acceleration of events following the eviction case of Maricarmen Abascal has meant that the dissolution of the Courts has practically coincided with the Constitutional Court's order to the Supreme Court to immediately apply the amnesty to the leaders of the 'Procés' and with the withdrawal of the arrest warrants for former president Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig. A sword of Damocles that they had been carrying for nine years. However, after almost a decade, the most difficult part remains for Carles Puigdemont: the true return.

This Tuesday has been a very important day in the fight to erase the effects of the judicial repression that was set in motion the very day after October 1st against political leaders and anonymous citizens for defending Catalonia's right to self-determination. The decision of the Constitutional Court, which has finally ordered the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty also to those accused of the crime of embezzlement, opens the door to the return of Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig, and to nullify the disqualification from public office suffered by Oriol Junqueras, Dolors Bassa, Jordi Turull, and Raül Romeva. It will be the end of a process that has lasted many years: one that began with pardons, continued with the repeal of the crime of sedition, and has finally culminated in the total application of an amnesty that the judiciary has tried to torpedo by all means.

The former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont has declared the end of the "political repression" stage following the 1-O, after the Constitutional Court fully endorsed the amnesty. The decision represents, he said, a defeat for the various Spanish public powers that have put obstacles in the way of the law's application "for strictly political reasons." The institutional appearance of the former head of Government took place this afternoon, a few hours after the Supreme Court also announced the lifting of his arrest warrant, which represents the first definitive step for him to return from exile to Catalonia. The leader of Junts has claimed the "enormous political importance" of the law, which disavows the repression and makes it evident that "this was not the way." However, he warned that the political conflict with the State remains in force: "In terms of the Catalonia-Spain relationship, nothing is solved today [...]. The amnesty is not in itself a solution," he claimed from Waterloo.

The Constitutional Court plans to approve today the ruling by which it will order the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty once and for all. After this ruling, it will be necessary to wait for the Supreme Court to archive the case and for Judge Llarena to annul the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, Puig, and Comín so that they can return to Catalonia without the risk of being arrested.

3,263 days have passed since he left for Belgium and 847 days since the amnesty came into force, and Carles Puigdemont now has a clear path to return to Catalonia, although he will wait for the final archiving of the case to do so—in a few days or weeks. He will be able to put an end to almost nine years of exile after the Constitutional Court ordered the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty law to the 1-O leaders in a “preferential and urgent” manner and, a few minutes later, Judge Pablo Llarena lifted the arrest warrant that had been in force since November 2017 and which he confirmed in July 2024 with a convoluted justification. The TC now concludes that pardoning the embezzlement is “the only conclusion reconcilable” with the “rules of logic and common sense” and reproaches Manuel Marchena for deciding to “evade the genuine meaning” of the amnesty with an “internally contradictory” interpretation that is “manifestly contrary” to the “purpose and spirit” of the law.

Podem announced this morning that tomorrow it will vote in favor of the two housing decrees, in line with what the Tenants' Union had requested. With Podem's yes, it remains to be seen how Junts and the PNB will vote.

In current politics, hyper-leadership proliferates, but what is valued most is a personal brand that exceeds the party brand. This is what characters as disparate as Gabriel Rufián, Carles Puigdemont, Ada Colau, or Juanma Moreno Bonilla have in common.