Arrested, then released. If Carles Puigdemont, the former president of Catalonia who had unilaterally declared the region’s independence in 2017, was arrested on Thursday, he has since been released from prison this Friday in Italy (in Sardinia). However, he is still subject to possible extradition to Spain. Enough to reignite a case that tended to calm down in recent months.
Of course, the separatists still rule Catalonia, but discussions had been initiated with Madrid. 20 minutes explains why this possible return to Spain of Puigdemont falls rather badly for both the central government and that of Catalonia.
What is the political context before the arrest of Carles Puigdemont in Italy?
Since the start of the year, the tension has eased somewhat between Madrid and Barcelona. The government of Pedro Sanchez has taken a huge step towards the Catalan government by offering a pardon to the independence leaders condemned for having participated in the unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia in October 2017. “It is indeed a pardon, not an amnesty. as was demanded by the separatists. The socialist government has reiterated that it was a pardon, the sentences are not quashed ”, reminds 20 minutes Carole Viñals, teacher-researcher at the University of Lille.
The release of these nine officials, considered political prisoners by the Catalan government, was a sort of sine qua non for trying to get everyone back to the table. At the same time, if the separatists remained, and largely, in the majority in the regional parliament during the elections of February 14, it is the left and moderate wing (ERC) which took the upper hand over that of the right, more until endian (JxCat).
Pere Aragonès, the new president of the region, has, despite the refusal of his JxCat partners, decided to accept the outstretched hand of Madrid and to come and sit around a “dialogue table”. “Pedro Sanchez maneuvered well, because he exposed even more the divisions of the separatists”, thinks Carole Viñals.
Could the arrest of Carles Puigdemont call this process into question?
Pere Aragonès gave strong support to Carles Puigedemont during his arrest. He even announced that he was going to go to Sardinia before he was released, “but he did not indicate that he was leaving the dialogue table,” notes Carole Viñals. She thinks neither he nor the government in Madrid wants it, at least today. It could get worse if Carles Puigdemont is indeed extradited and therefore jailed in Spain awaiting trial. The current president of Catalonia is indeed under pressure. He accepted Madrid’s outstretched hand on his own and took a hell of a risk.
Friday morning, JxCat and the CUP (a small far-left independentist party, essential to the Catalan government to be in the majority) again denounced the process of dialogue initiated with Madrid. For them, the arrest of Carles Puigdemont “Proves that Pedro Sanchez does not intend to negotiate a political solution to the conflict” in Catalonia. Demonstrations were organized, in particular by these two parties and the powerful independentist association ANC. No current ERC parliamentarian attended. However, nothing is less certain for the extradition of Carles Puigdemont.
Refugee in Belgium since 2017, the Catalan leader has already been arrested once, in Germany, in 2018. He was finally released. Since 2019 and his election as a Member of the European Parliament, he enjoys parliamentary immunity. This was lifted in March, Puigdemont’s appeal was refused, but the procedure is not fully completed. The Italian judges would have every opportunity to release the Catalan leader on the basis of this imbroglio.
Is Carles Puigdemont’s return to Spain a good thing for Pedro Sanchez?
Not sure that Pedro Sanchez wants an extradition right away, although of course he welcomed the arrest and called for a trial in Spain. When he took over as head of the Spanish government in 2018, he still had a tough stance on the Catalan question. “In 2019 he said again that he wanted Carles Puigedemont to answer for his actions in Spain,” recalls Carole Viñals. Since then, he has put water in his wine, in particular because he is forced to govern with the left party Podemos, in favor of a referendum in Catalonia.
A pardon from Puigdemont seems impossible “if only because to pardon him, he will have to be condemned and that will take time”, judges the teacher-researcher. And because the figure of the former Catalan president is the most divisive of an extremely epidermal file. The socialist prime minister has already spent considerable political capital to pardon the nine jailed separatists. He pays it again: in the polls, he lags behind the Popular Party (right) in the radical and uncompromising position on the Catalan file. Seeing the talks with the Barcelona government stop just after starting them would make a possible return on political investment for Pedro Sanchez more than unlikely.
“He can always claim to have brought Puigdemont back to Spain when he had fled under the PP government,” said Carole Viñals. And again: the Spanish government is in the process of preparing its budget for 2022. However, the coalition formed by the Socialists and Podemos does not hold an absolute majority in the Cortes (the local National Assembly). It will need the support of various regionalist or nationalist parties. Sanchez was counting on the votes of ERC deputies to get her budget through. This support seems more uncertain today, in any case suspended following the events in Sardinia. A failure on the budget vote would bring down the government of Pedro Sanchez.