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.

"The espadrille or the swastika. You choose." The question was asked in an article this very week by the former president of the Generalitat and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, after in the Parliament chamber Junts, ERC, CUP and Comuns displayed the famous poster "Let's crush fascism", created in 1936 by the photographer and publicist Pere Català i Pic. Well, there is at least one Junts councilor who chooses the swastika. It is Roger Pinart, second deputy mayor of Port de la Selva, who has published a clear message on social media. "In this case, swastika", he wrote on X, responding to Junts' unequivocally anti-fascist post: "Against hate, now and always. With President Companys, now and always".

As we already told you yesterday, the Constitutional Court endorsed the amnesty law. Although the magistrates' deliberations are secret, it has been an open secret (as almost always happens in the Spanish judicial corridors): the progressive majority opposed the proposal of a conservative magistrate who was against it, and now the forecast is that in the week of October 5th, the TC will end up giving the green light to the amnesty. And it would be then that Judge Llarena would have to lift the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, Comín and Puig, and the Supreme Court would have to definitively archive all the cases related to the 'Procés' that it still keeps open. A very bitter medicine for an application of justice that is arrogant and proud.When would Puigdemont return?The ARA delegate in Madrid, Núria Orriols, specifies that the president in exile could choose between three moments to return: once the Constitutional Court has decided, after the withdrawal of Llarena's arrest warrant, or once the case has been definitively shelved. You can be sure that after spending 9 years in Belgium, it won't make a difference to Puigdemont if it takes a day or a month more, and that he will not return until it is clear that they will not arrest him. Another thing is that, once here, some random Peinado-style judge might find a traffic fine he didn't pay or revive the Aigües de Girona case. But beyond the criminal situation, there is the political one. And Puigdemont must decide what he wants to do: whether to go to Parliament to act as leader of the opposition, whether to run again or not, and in turn, Junts will have to see if it is capable of covering, from what was once Convergència, with its connection to big business, the entire independence movement beyond the size of its pocket.Meanwhile, yesterday the Mossos superintendent, Carles Hernández, head of the General Information Commissariat, the police branch on which that unfortunate infiltration of two agents into a teachers' assembly depended, appeared before the Parliament of Catalonia.

Since the amnesty law was approved in the Congress of Deputies 846 days ago, there has been a question that conditions Catalan politics and Spanish politics: when will Carles Puigdemont return to Catalonia as a free man? The return of the Junts leader has been hovering over the legislature from the very first day, it has been a repeated demand of the independence supporters and has become a hope for the PSOE to rebuild alliances and complicity with Miriam Nogueras's party in Madrid. Now the Constitutional Court has set the machinery in motion so that –definitively– it may be possible.

Some day the history of how the Spanish judiciary conspired to prevent the application of a law democratically approved by the Congress of Deputies, as was the amnesty for those convicted and accused for the 'Procés', will have to be reconstructed, but luckily more than three years after its entry into force, light is beginning to be seen at the end of the tunnel. This Tuesday, September 22, the majority in the Constitutional Court has materialized to remove the last obstacle placed by the Supreme Court, which is to consider that the crime of embezzlement is not eligible for amnesty. The plenary session of the TC has rejected the proposal of the conservative magistrate José María Macías where this thesis was maintained and Jordi Turull's appeal against the decision not to apply the amnesty to him was dismissed. Now Macías will have to draft another proposal in the opposite direction.

For almost a decade, the return of Puigdemont has marked Catalan and Spanish politics, but now the moment of truth has arrived. It seems clear that the Constitutional Court will grant protection to the leadership of the 'Procés' –this Tuesday it already took the first step– and that the Supreme Court will withdraw the arrest warrant for the former president. This is confirmed by both TC sources and Supreme Court sources, and Puigdemont's entourage also gives credit to this path. They say, they say... that the former president is now indeed returning. The scheduled calendar is as follows: this Tuesday, September 22, there was an initial debate at the Constitutional Court in which a majority of magistrates positioned themselves in favor of the amnesty for Jordi Turull and against the proposal by the conservative rapporteur José María Macías to reject it. As a result of this, the report will move to the next plenary session, which will be on October 6, where it is expected that President Conde-Pumpido will present a proposal favorable to the amnesty of Dolors Bassa, that it be approved by a majority, and that it also have effects for Puigdemont. In other words, it would be at this moment that the Constitutional Court would firmly endorse for the first time the amnesty for the crime of embezzlement related to the 1-O and would open the door to his return.If everything goes according to plan, when this TC ruling is published, which may be a few days after the decision of October 6th or 7th, Llarena will be bound by it and could proceed, even on his own initiative, without notifying the parties, to withdraw the arrest warrant for the former president, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig. This would imply that Puigdemont would no longer be in the state security forces' alert system and could already circulate freely within the Spanish state without being arrested.However, at this point his case would not yet be completely archived: at the same moment Llarena would have to dictate the conclusion of the summary and send it to the Supreme Court chamber, which after asking for the opinion of the parties (they usually have about five working days to do so), would decide whether to close the case definitively also by virtue of the endorsement of the appeal for protection to the Constitutional Court. When exactly would Puigdemont return? He does not want to advance anything and everything will depend on the content of the resolutions, but he could choose up to three moments to return: once the TC has decided; waiting for the withdrawal of Llarena's arrest warrant, or once the case has been definitively archived. From his environment, however, they prescribe prudence and remember that whenever it is, we are talking about October, November or at the latest December – provided everything goes as planned.The implications of the return

The fact that Puigdemont is returning to Catalonia opens a new phase both in the Principality and in Spain.

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The Constitutional Court has activated the countdown for Carles Puigdemont's return to Catalonia. It has done so by endorsing the application of the amnesty law to the embezzlement attributed to the Procés, as ARA has learned. As expected, the progressive majority imposed its criteria and rejected the proposal of the conservative José María Macías, who was in favor of rejecting the appeal for protection (recurs d'empara) by Jordi Turull –Minister of the Presidency during the 1-O and current secretary general of Junts– and validating the criteria of the Supreme Court, which until now has refused to exonerate the crime of embezzlement. After an hour and a half of deliberation, he was left in the minority.

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President Puigdemont has broken his silence to the media this weekend and has spoken about his return to Catalonia. It has been more than a year since he granted an interview to any Catalan media outlet and it remains the same, because he has granted the interview to the English newspaper The Sunday Times. The headline they have given it already explains that, for the international public, the Procés and its leaders seem so far away that it does not even put his name in the headline: “An exiled Catalan separatist has no regrets and considers returning to Spain”. And as a subtitle: “Carles Puigdemont has spent nine turbulent years away from home, during which he has suffered an arrest and lost his parents without having the opportunity to see them. Now he wants to «breathe reality» again”. The president in exile explained it this way, in this interview granted at his home, in Waterloo, a few kilometers from Brussels:Puigdemont: “The current Catalonia is not the same as it was when I left the country. During all this time I have tried to be in contact with my team and with the people, to understand exactly what is happening in Catalonia. But I know that it is not the same as smelling, touching, feeling, being among the people. This is my first intention when I arrive: to immerse myself in reality. To touch again. To feel, to smell the country”. When Puigdemont speaks publicly in this tone, it is clear that he now sees it closer than ever. And following the thread of his response, it is by feeling, touching, and smelling the country that he must decide if he wants to act as leader of the opposition to Illa and, above all, if he wants to run for the presidency again, or if Catalonia and the memory he has left behind have changed so much that he will not be able to turn the polls around.Meanwhile, this weekend Sánchez, Feijóo and Abascal have been through Catalonia. Sánchez to say that now everything is going much better thanks to Salvador Illa, Abascal to tell us that the problem is Islam and Feijóo to consider that we are material for a psychiatrist. Feijóo: “And I do not want a Catalonia trapped in a permanent loop, sitting on a psychiatrist's couch asking itself what it is. No, I do want to turn the page. I want you Catalans not to be the ones who pay the most taxes in Spain and the ones who receive the worst services. You cannot have a Rodalies that is sometimes scary and other times shameful. You cannot have the worst education in Spain, along with Ceuta and Melilla. You cannot have the highest crime rates. And you cannot accept that your industry is dismantled, whether it be called Seat, Ascó or Valdebeos. We will maintain the Catalan industry above all else”.Look, Mr. Feijóo, part of our financial problems come from the premeditated asphyxiation of which your party is one of the historic co-responsible parties. Asphyxiation that extends to the trains, for example: 34 years after the first AVE (Madrid-Seville), the Mediterranean corridor is still unfinished. And for you to suggest that we have a mental disorder that needs a psychiatrist is a very crude way of belittling the history of Catalonia and Spain. It’s a good thing you came to ask for our vote.Good morning.

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Former 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.

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Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena now refuses to amnesty Carles Puigdemont until the Constitutional Court orders him to do so, because he finds that the —devastating— ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union must not have enough consistency for a patriotic judge like him. Clad as Don Tancredo, Llarena digs in his heels and says that the CJEU ruling does not serve as a legal basis to amnesty Puigdemont, given that he considers the Supreme Court's interpretation of embezzlement has not been reviewed. The answer comes by itself: then let them review it. Above all, because the idea of “embezzlement” that was wielded to convict the leaders of the Procés was a new display of judicial inventiveness on a par with the accusation of rebellion, which ended up being dismissed. Embezzlement was not, because they needed charges to add years of prison. But the inconsistency of the accusation was the same.Llarena's reasons for not granting amnesty to Puigdemont also hold no water. Not only that, but they must be very close to prevarication, given his insistence on disobeying not only the amnesty law, but also a ruling from a high European court which, as a judge practicing within an EU member state, he has the obligation to abide by, comply with, and enforce. However, it is understood that Llarena's response is not addressed to legal experts, nor even to citizens with a minimum of critical spirit, but to the media outlets that applaud demonstrations of bullfighting pride. It is as if Llarena were saying that, faced with the hemlock of having to amnesty an enemy of Spain, he will not do so unless at least a Spanish court orders him to (even if it is a court, the Constitutional Court, which the ever-equanimous Esteban González Pons defined two years ago as “the cancer of the rule of law,” despite the use and abuse the Popular Party made of it when it held a majority). Llarena does not care that he has repeatedly made a fool of himself before European justice with his international arrest warrants against Puigdemont. He has seen that it does not work, but his reaction is to maintain the arrest warrant within the territory of the Spanish state: if Puigdemont sets foot there, he will be automatically arrested, a scene that has been the judge's wet dream for nine years. To save Spain, naturally.The fact is serious, but it seems anecdotal because in these years we have seen the Spanish justice system commit so many absurdities, and of such magnitude, that this stubbornness of Llarena seems like little in comparison. It serves as a reminder, in any case, of the fact that the CJEU ruling not only represents an endorsement of the amnesty law (which dismantled the entire rule of law in Spain, according to the right and the extreme right), but also exposed, to the point of scandal, the televised shame that was the Procés trial. And it also reminds us that the judiciary, converted into a political weapon of conservative ultranationalism, remains the most serious problem of the many that Spanish democracy has.

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President Illa has decided to break the monotony, conscious, perhaps, that it was trapping him. His restrained tone was rewarded during the bewilderment of the 'Procés' aftermath and, by making a virtue of calm, he grasped the country's need to lower the tone and take a pause. With this criterion, and with his rejection of shrillness, Illa has been making progress, at a time when the exercise of conjuncturally assuming the framework of the possible seemed to be imposing itself.

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If it were up to the Supreme Court, former president Carles Puigdemont would not be granted amnesty. Not even after the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in which it dictated that the 1-O (referendum) did not affect the financial interests of the European Union. This was demonstrated once again this Tuesday, when the investigating magistrate of the 'Procés' case, Pablo Llarena, again refused to withdraw the arrest warrant against the former president and apply the amnesty to him. However, the tone of the interlocutory order was already different from previous ones, like someone who already knows they are reaching the end of the road. The high court maintains its doctrine of excluding the crime of embezzlement from the rule because it interprets that Puigdemont and the rest of the exiles had a financial benefit following the October 2017 referendum, but it also admits that this is the case while awaiting the ongoing appeals for constitutional protection (amparo) at the Constitutional Court (TC). Llarena's decision comes weeks before the TC begins to discuss the appeal for constitutional protection of the pro-independence leaders, which should foreseeably dismantle this criterion of the Supreme Court to unblock the application of the amnesty. The forecast, therefore, is that if the Constitutional Court is clear in endorsing the arguments of the former prisoners and exiles, Llarena will indeed modify his doctrine.

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