Carles PuigdemontCatalonia’s former leader, who fled Spain over his role in the wealthy region’s failed independence struggle in 2017, returned to Spain on Thursday after seven years on the run, despite an outstanding arrest warrant.
Puigdemont shouted “Long live a free Catalonia!” as he climbed onto a podium in Barcelona to address thousands of people gathered outside the Catalan regional parliament, which will elect a new leader later in the day.
“I’m here to remind you that we’re still here,” he added, drawing applause.
Many people in the crowd waved red, yellow and blue Catalan independence flags and chanted slogans demanding Catalonia’s secession from Spain.
“He is a very noble person, the only one who believes in independence and has never stopped doing so,” said Nuria Pujol, a woman in her 50s who came to Barcelona from the Alt Penedes region in inland Catalonia to see Puigdemont.
After his short speech, Puigdemont went to the regional parliament for the vote on the investiture, where police are expected to detain him before he is allowed to enter.
If that happens, the vote will likely be suspended.
After months of negotiations following the regional elections in May that yielded no results, it looks set to become the new leader of Catalonia, the leader of the local branch of Spain’s ruling Socialists, Salvador Illa, who has close ties to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
The Socialists won the most seats in the northeastern region, but failed to gain a majority.
Illa subsequently received the support of a small far-left party and the left-wing Catalan separatist party ERC, giving him the 68 votes needed to be elected as head of the regional government in the 135-seat Catalan parliament.
The investiture debate in the Catalan parliament starts at 10:00 am (08:00 GMT).
The secretary general of Puigdemont’s radical separatist party JxCAT has said he will call for the vote to be suspended if the former Catalan leader is arrested.
If a new Catalan regional government is not formed by August 26, new elections will be held in October.
– Contested tax deal –
Puigdemont led Catalonia’s regional government in 2017, when it pushed through an independence referendum despite a court ban. A declaration of independence followed shortly after.
Shortly after the independence struggle, he fled Spain to avoid prosecution. Since then, he has lived in Belgium and recently in France.
While Spain’s parliament passed an amnesty law in May for those involved in the failed secession struggle, the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that the measure would not fully apply to Puigdemont.
Sanchez agreed to the amnesty law in exchange for crucial support from JxCAT in the Spanish parliament for his fragile minority government, sparking huge street protests against the measure, organized by the right.
He now faces opposition from sections of his own Socialist Party and the right over a proposal to give Catalonia full control over taxes levied in the region.
The measure was promised to the ERC in exchange for the party’s support for Illa in Thursday’s investiture vote.
The proposal has been a key demand of Catalan independence parties for decades, but critics argue it would deprive the central state of a substantial source of income. It still needs to be approved by Spain’s national parliament.
A similar system already exists in Spain’s northern Basque Country, where there is also an active independence movement.
If Illa passes Thursday’s nomination vote, he will become the first leader of Catalonia’s regional government not to come from the separatist camp since 2010.
The former health minister defended the tax deal with the ERC, saying it was “in favour of all Catalans”.
“These are agreements to improve our financing without harming anyone and maintaining the criteria of solidarity,” he said after receiving the ERC’s support.
But former Socialist deputy prime minister Alfonso Guerra warned that the tax deal “opens the way to a federal system and the independence of Catalonia”.
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