Miquel Iceta said that, when the time came, pardons could be a way out for the leaders of the Independence bid who were to be tried in the Supreme Court. It was December 13, 2017, during the election campaign in Catalonia, and there was still more than a year to go before the trial and almost two for the conviction of sedition. Now it is an unknown whether or not former president Carles Puigdemont will return to Spain, but the Minister of Culture and Sports and leader of the Catalan Socialists' Party has already spoken in favour of granting pardons if he chooses to follow the same path as his former colleagues in Government. He did so this morning in an interview on RAC1, as last time: "I think he should decide to return and submit to the courts. Then, between all of us, we should be able to find happy solutions, as we have found with the pardon of those already sentenced by the Supreme Court".

The Court of Auditors continues to be the main protagonist of Catalan politics. This Wednesday, a day after the Government approved a fund to deal with the millionaire bails over its Foreign Action, Vox has announced it will appeal against the new law. "Its only goal is to finance the judicial causes of the independentistas. We will not stand still or silent, we will appeal the decree law and we will present a complaint for embezzlement," has reaffirmed the leader of Vox, Ignacio Garriga, who has directly threatened Aragonès: "Your time will soon be up". In fact, Garriga has even said the Catalan Government would end up "in prison". Ciudadanos and PP have also threatened with court action, but have not given more details, although the leader of Ciudadanos, Carlos Carrizosa, has explained that they have already asked the Spanish government to intervene the Generalitat's accounts. The unionist entity Convivencia Cívica - one of the first to appeal pardons - has also asked the Ombudsman to file an appeal for unconstitutionality.

After more than a thousand days in prison, the Government of the Generalitat has received with all the institutional pomp the nine pro-independence leaders pardoned last Wednesday by the Spanish government. When a few minutes past four o'clock in the afternoon, the former Catalan Ministers, the former parliamentary Speaker Carme Forcadell, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart have arrived together to the Plaça Sant Jaume to stage their return to public life after more than three years of deprivation of liberty. President Pere Aragonès and vice president Jordi Puigneró have accompanied them inside the Palace for a symbolic picture to be taken: the entire current government en bloc, with the parliamentary bureau and the Speaker, Laura Borràs, sitting on one side of the Gothic gallery in front of which was the government in power until the referendum, along with Cuixart, Sànchez and Forcadell. "Welcome back, welcome home. Today we are carrying out an act of justice", vice-president Puigneró began.

After the pardon of nine political prisoners, there are still dozens of people indicted over the 2017 Independence referendum, among them, the exiles. Right now former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the former Catalan ministers Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Lluís Puig, as well as former deputies Marta Rovira -also secretary general of Esquerra- and CUP's Anna Gabriel are abroad as a result of charges brought against them.

The movement of tectonic plates has been smoothing the terrain so that the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, can dedicate this week to defend the pardons of political prisoners without great resistance. First it was the endorsement of ERC for the pardons, but then this was added to that of the Spanish employers, the Cercle d'Economia and the Catalan Church, which were reacting in chain to the message, launched in May from the Spanish government, that the will was to release the pro-independence leaders. The week that starts this Monday is important for the head of the executive to control the story of this decision, with the memory of the clash with the State and the imprisonment of the sovereignty leaders still fresh in the memory of citizens of both sensibilities. It begins with an event at the Liceu in which, under the title "Reencuentro. A project for the future for all of Spain", Sánchez announced that tomorrow he will propose the granting of pardons to the Council of Ministers. "The government of Spain has decided to face the problem, to seek harmony, that's why I will propose the pardons to the Council of Ministers", he said: "We want to resume political dialogue".

The article by Oriol Junqueras published yesterday in the ARA in which he endorsed the pardons and questioned the unilateral path has opened an intense debate within the pro-independence movement. Not only the CUP has replied to the leader of Esquerra that "one cannot renounce" disobeying the state, but the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Sànchez, has also amended Junqueras' approach in an article published this Tuesday in the ARA. He responds with three ideas: that Junqueras' letter is a "tutelage" of the president, Pere Aragonès, because it limits his "capacity for action" - alluding to the possibility of undertaking unilateralism -; that the Catalan independence bid on 1 October was not a "mistake" nor an "illegitimate" act, and that the commitment to "negotiation and agreement" does not have to entail the "renunciation of other democratic and peaceful ways".