Two years and four months after it came into force, the amnesty has fully reached those convicted of embezzlement in the Procés trial. The Supreme Court, led by Manuel Marchena, has applied the law to four members of the 1-O Government who were disqualified until 2030 and 2031: Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull, Dolors Bassa and Raül Romeva. In this way, they regain all political rights and will be able to run for elections again, hold public office or, for example, return to teaching at the public university. The final green light for the pardon comes just over seven years after the Supreme Court's sentence and five years after they left prison thanks to pardons. The decision, taken reluctantly and entering into a dialectical battle with the Constitutional Court (TC), is Manuel Marchena's penultimate intervention in the judicial persecution of the October 1st referendum. His last dance will be the application of the total amnesty to Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig, who are still waiting. Before that, Pablo Llarena will need to conclude the summary, a final step he will take in the coming days.

The day after the leader of Junts in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, completely closed the door to facilitating a PP and Vox government, the party's secretary general, Jordi Turull, also ruled out investing the Spanish president and socialist leader: "We will not invest Pedro Sánchez, because we have been very badly burned by this person," he stated in an interview with TV3. In fact, he stressed that the Brussels pact, the seed of the last legislature in the State, "was an agreement in historical terms, but it was one thing after another and, always finding excuses, everything kept getting delayed."

Following Junts' vote against the two housing decrees, Rufián asserted that he would strive to ensure that Junts ends up in "the greatest political ostracism." Later, on social media, he considered them "fucking classists" and Turull retorted by saying that everyone knows that Rufián is "an invention of the State's sewers, infiltrated first in Súmate and then in Esquerra." And yesterday, on TVE, Colau said that Puigdemont "will have problems walking through Catalonia because he will encounter a very angry citizenry" due to Junts' opposing vote on the decrees.

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.

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.

“The interpretation of the Supreme Court cannot be labeled as surprising or unpredictable, much less capricious or the fruit of an alleged animosity.” The first version of the first draft of the Constitutional Court regarding the amnesty for embezzlement, prepared by the conservative José María Macías and to which ARA has had access, proposes rejecting the appeal for amparo presented by Jordi Turull against Manuel Marchena's decision not to grant him amnesty and to keep his disqualification in effect until 2030. The document, which will be debated at the plenary session of the TC on September 22, fully endorses the thesis of the high court, which avoided pardoning the embezzlement by alleging that the members of the 1-O Government enriched themselves because they did not pay for the referendum out of their own pockets: “The benefit can also be defined as the mere possibility of improperly disposing of funds not previously available, a fact that increases spending capacity and the consequent possibility of acquiring goods and services. Being able to dispose of what was not available already implies a benefit,” the draft argues.

The Secretary General of Junts, Jordi Turull, has challenged Alberto Núñez Feijóo to meet with Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo if he wants to convince the party to join an instrumental motion of no confidence to bring down Pedro Sánchez and call elections. "If he has a serious offer, serious things are explained in meetings, and he [Feijóo] knows that meetings with Junts, with the highest leadership [...], must be held in Waterloo," he told El matí de Catalunya Ràdio. The proposal caught Feijóo at the Cercle d'Economia, but he did not want to explicitly respond to Turull's request. The popular leader once again defended the motion of no confidence, but warned: "I am not coming to ask for favors nor to give them away."

Josep Rull and Jordi Turull are two of Junts' strongmen. Former political prisoners, the first is president of the Parliament, the country's second institution, and the second is the party's general secretary, second only to president Carles Puigdemont in the hierarchy of Junts members. To the Rull-Turull duo, Borrull is now added, in a wordplay in the form of a paronomasia, at least, curious. Specifically, Toni Borrull, Junts' candidate in Matadepera. He could be the future mayor of this Vallesà municipality for the next four years. And all three have played a key role in the reunification of the post-convergence space after losing the previous elections in a town where they had governed since 2007.

Reality is always changing, but the speed at which it's changing these days is impressive. France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden are sending soldiers to Greenland. And Denmark, of course. Spain says it's considering it. These are small contingents that will carry out "reconnaissance" work, in a clear symbolic message to Donald Trump: this is Danish sovereign territory, it's European Union territory, and we don't accept threats. Trump must be laughing, but these countries have done the only thing they can do, which is not to look the other way.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo asked Catalan business leaders this Friday to They will help him convince Junts to move forward with a motion of no confidence against Pedro SánchezThe request was not well received by Carles Puigdemont's party, and on Saturday, the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, retorted: "The first thing he should do is not ask for help from business owners, but apologize to them for having asked them to leave Catalonia," Turull stated during his address at the party's national council meeting. "He should apologize for his systemic mistreatment while they were in government," he added. Turull criticized the People's Party (PP) for having the "audacity" to make this request to Catalan business owners and criticized the PP for boycotting issues such as the official status of Catalan in the European Union. The Junts leader also criticized the PP for carrying out a "preemptive vote of no confidence" against former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias and allowing Jaume Collboni to become mayor of the Catalan capital. "They should also apologize for everything they did from the state's dirty tricks department to destroy so many Catalan political leaders, both civilly and politically," he added.

The CEO survey that predicts a tie between Junts and Aliança Catalana Being the third largest party doesn't worry Jordi Turull. At least, that's what the general secretary of Junts tried to convey this Tuesday after the poll was published on Monday, indicating that 21% of Catalans who voted for Carles Puigdemont in the Catalan Parliament would now vote for Aliança Catalana. However, this won't cause Junts to change course. "We won't do things for four votes that will make us blush with shame two years from now [...]. It would be a contradiction if, because of some polls, we made a U-turn," he said at a press conference organized by the Barcelona DailyThe survey, conducted by journalism students at UPF, is the result of a narrative and has both "confessable and unconfessable" intentions behind it, according to Turull. "I'm not worried about the polls, I'm worried about the situation in the country," he said, noting that the CEO's last survey was conducted six months before the 2024 elections. He also predicted a drop in Junts' support. which ultimately did not happen –at that time, however, the party had not yet confirmed Puigdemont as its candidate–. Nevertheless, the secretary general of Junts has avoided vetoing agreements with Sílvia Orriols' party.

The reluctance of a sector of Junts to break all relations with the PSOE They do not change the course of the party's leadership, which has in its favor the result of the internal consultation that endorsed that decision. The Secretary General, Jordi Turull, has responded in this regard to the mayor of Figueres, Jordi Masquef, who in an interview on the ARA He expressed his support for negotiating the state budget to continue pursuing "useful politics" from Madrid, despite the break announced (and defended) by the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont. Speaking from Vic this Saturday, Turull maintained that it is "unsustainable" to continue making deals with the PSOE, given their failure to comply with agreements on issues such as Catalan representation in Europe, the transfer of immigration powers to the Generalitat (Catalan government), and the lack of progress in resolving the political conflict. "No one wants to do useful politics and reach agreements with people who don't keep their word," Turull retorted to Masquef.

"Do you agree with the proposal of the national executive leadership to terminate the investiture agreement with the PSOE due to its repeated failure to fulfill its commitments?" This is the question that Junts members will have to answer, with a "yes" or a "no", to validate the agreement. the break with the socialists that the party leadership agreed to yesterdayThis was explained by the Secretary General of Junts, Jordi Turull, in an interview this morning on RAC1. The question proposed by the leadership has already received the support of 93.36% of the votes of the party's national council, which met tonight, which will allow the voting of members to begin this Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. and end at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, when the results will be made public.

The week in the Congress has struck down the immigration transfer In Catalonia, agreed between the PSOE and Junts, and with the relationship between the two parties hanging by a thread, Jordi Turull delved this Friday into the Socialists' failures in terms of financing. However, he did so by pointing to Andalusia to explain the grievances of the current model for Catalans. These statements were not well received by the Socialist ranks and have also received a response from the Regional Government, where the PP governs.

The transfer of immigration powers to Catalonia, agreed between the PSOE and Junts, was derailed this Tuesday in Congress by the veto of Podemos, which combined its votes with those of the PP and Vox to overturn it. The purple party's refusal to allow the law to take its first step in the lower house—what was voted on was its consideration, not its final approval—led to its failure after a debate in which accusations of "centralism" against Podemos to prevent Catalonia from expanding its self-government were mixed with "at the same time." The latter is Podemos's argument to defend the vote against its four deputies. Carles Puigdemont's party, meanwhile, attacked the purple party, accusing it of wanting to apply a "155" in Catalonia on immigration matters with "extreme Spain."

Together, the coalition is once again stumping Salvador Illa's government in the 2026 budget negotiations. As he did last year, has withdrawn from the talks for the new budget, considering that the pacts the PSC maintains with Esquerra and Comuns are "incompatible" with its national vision. This was confirmed by the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Turull, in an interview with the Efe news agency. "Isla represents the denationalization of Catalan institutions. We cannot support even a blank check for these policies. We are the alternative. Isla represents the antithesis of policies that are more necessary than ever for the middle class," he stated.

A year ago, the plan to pick up Carles Puigdemont and return him was a resounding success. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), who hadn't anticipated that the former president would not show up at the Parliament for Salvador Illa's investiture after his speech at the Arc de Triomf, were unable to arrest him. But one image nearly ruined the escape of the Junts leader on that sweltering August 8th. It was the one taken by Maria, who prefers to remain anonymous, aware that the photograph she took with her cell phone could have thwarted a carefully designed plan to avoid his arrest.

The words of Podemos leader Ione Belarra in the ARA His opposition to the transfer of immigration powers because he believes the Mossos d'Esquadra would carry out "racist raids based on ethnic profiling" has provoked criticism from several pro-independence leaders, but also from the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa. "I will not allow anyone to question the professionalism of the Mossos d'Esquadra," he stated in a message to X. Hours earlier, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, had also replied to the leader of Podemos, who demanded that she apologize for "inciting hate crimes" against the Mossos d'Esquadra, saying in statements to TV3: "However, Belarra maintained her initial statements and stated that Isla "does not know the country and the reality that she governs," pointing to institutional racism.

The Spanish government won't fall for the time being, even though Vice President Yolanda Díaz refused to go to Congress today to sit next to Sánchez, and the PP and Vox said all kinds of things to the Spanish president. It all means: "You look like a skinned lamb, but you're the leader of the pack."

Having concluded the first meeting of the Socialist executive since the Santos Cerdán case, Pedro Sánchez is focusing these days on his parliamentary partners. The Socialist leader joined forces with his supporters to remain at the head of the Spanish government, and for now, the plurinational majority in Congress is agreeing to give him some breathing room. This is what happened this Tuesday at the meeting between the president of the Spanish executive and Junts (Junts). Despite being the investiture ally that has caused him the most headaches this term, Carles Puigdemont's party has abandoned the harsh tone and threats used on other occasions. "We are responsible people. We know the seriousness of the situation. We will not take hasty measures; we will take them with what is best for Catalonia in mind," stated Junts Secretary General Jordi Turull, upon leaving the hour-and-a-half meeting at Moncloa Palace, which he attended with the spokesperson for Congress, Míriam Nogueras.