A crazy day in Barcelona
Where a new president was elected, while one of his predecessors played chicken with the police
After seven years in self-imposed exile, news reached pro-independence supporters in the Catalonia region of Spain that Carles Puigdemont would be returning to the region’s capital.
The former regional president, and leader of the separatist movement, has unfinished business. His former coalition partners, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC) had abandoned their pursuit of independence and struck a deal to install the leader of the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya (Socialists’ Party of Catalonia, PSC-PSOE), Salvador Illa, as the 133rd President de la Generalitat de Catalunya (president of the government of Catalonia).
Illa, who served as health minister in the Spanish government during the covid pandemic, is, like his party, opposed to Catalan independence.
PSC narrowly came first in the regional election in February 2021, but with just 23% of the votes. Not for the first time, pro-independence parties won a majority of seats in the 135-member Parlament de Catalunya (parliament of Catalonia), while for the first time they also won a majority of votes. ERC, who came second in the election, took the presidency as the largest of the pro-independence parties. Pere Aragonès, who had been acting president since his predecessor Quim Torra had been disqualified from holding public office in September 2020, officially became the 132nd president.
The history of Catalonia over the past 20 years can best be viewed in terms of political power play and judicial lawfare. While a pro-independence element had always existed (the region had historically enjoyed de facto independence under the Kingdom of Aragon and up until the War of the Spanish Succession), support for independence started to grow rapidly after an updated regional constitution, which had been approved by both Spanish houses of parliament and by voters in Catalonia in 2006, was picked apart by the Spanish constitutional court at the behest of the right-wing Partido Popular (Popular Party, PP) in 2010.
Thus the seeds were sewn for unrest which would boil over on 1 October 2017. Under the leadership of Puigdemont, the Catalan government held an independence referendum which was opposed and declared illegal by the Spanish state. But, rather than let it be and denounce it after the event, the state went hard - sending riot police into polling stations to seize ballot boxes and attacking anyone, however peaceful, who stood in their way.
Sky News’ Mark Stone was on the ground on referendum day and recalls the experience in this 10-minute video:
Those opposed to independence heeded the Spanish government’s advice and largely stayed away, leading to a skewed vote. That notwithstanding, the Catalan government reported a 43% turnout, with 90% of votes in favour of independence.
On the back of the disputed referendum, the Catalan parliament voted by 70 votes to 10 to declare independence from Spain unilaterally. Two MPs abstained by submitting blank votes, while 53 left the chamber prior to the vote stating they had received advice that the vote could not take place as the Spanish constitutional court had suspended the referendum law on which the declaration was based.
From then, the lawfare and political power play ramped up exponentially - with the line between the two often blurring beyond recognition. There is not enough space to cover the events here, but in short, the Spanish government moved to immediately suspend regional rule, sacking the regional government, suspending the parliament and calling an election to elect a new parliament and government (in which pro-independence parties won a majority of seats once again). Eight members of the Catalan government were remanded in custody by the judiciary, while five, who had gone into self-imposed exile, became the subject of European arrest warrants (none of which were successfully executed, as they were either withdrawn or, in the case of Puigdemont in Germany and others in Belgium, rejected).
In the 2019 European elections, Puigdemont stood successfully, alongside other self-exiled politicians, conferring on them immunity throughout the European union, which was recognised everywhere apart from Spain. In a quirk of the Spanish legal system, state prosecutions of the former Catalan government were carried out side-by-side with private prosecutions led by far-right political party Vox. Politicians who were prosecuted were found guilty and imprisoned. And then the national political tectonic plates shifted.
In 2021, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, PSOE), PSC’s parent party, announced a pardon for those involved in the push for independence, despite 60% public opposition across Spain. Two years later, Sánchez entered into an agreement with Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia, Junts) which included an amnesty law which should have drawn a line under the past and allowed those politicians and others involved in the 2017 referendum and declaration of independence to return to normality.
Despite the amnesty law, a Spanish judge decided it did not apply to Puigdemont on technical grounds, and maintained his arrest warrant. Thus, when he announced he would be his party’s leading candidate in the snap regional election earlier this year, he could not return home to campaign. Despite his absence, Junts came second, carrying the torch for independence almost single-handedly. PSC won with 42 seats, Junts increased their number of seats to 35, while ERC saw their number of seats fall to 20.
In the negotiations which followed the election, agreements were reached between PSC and ERC, and between PSC and Comuns Sumar (Commons Unite, Comuns) last week, leading to a formal vote in the Catalan parliament to elect the regional president yesterday.
As an elected MP and leader of the opposition, Puigdemont announced his intention to return to Barcelona yesterday to take his seat, despite an active arrest warrant and an increased presence of Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan regional police, mossos) officers.
Puigdemont did, indeed, arrive in Barcelona and addressed a large crowd at the city’s Arc de Triomf:
However, after his public appearance, which was observed by mossos officers who had decided not to attempt an arrest in front of such a large crowd to avoid public disorder, Puigdemont jumped into a car and has not been seen since.
The police had decided to arrest Puigdemont on arrival at the parliament, the surrounds of which - a public park - had been closed for the day of the presidential vote. However, after circling the parliament grounds twice looking for a safe way in, the car carrying Puigdemont left. A police helicopter followed it for a while, before they lost it in traffic.
The mossos were undeterred. They locked down Barcelona, initiating operació Gàbia, a search operation which was designed to find fleeing terrorists, not elected politicians. Roads were blockaded, vehicles were searched and, as a result, gridlock ruled the city, but the former president was nowhere to be seen. They issued an arrest warrant for Jordi Turull, a former member of Puigdemont’s government who had served time in prison for his role in the independence referendum and who had been with Puigdemont when he disappeared. They also arrested two of their own officers who they believed assisted him in fleeing (one of whom owned the car he was being driven in).
Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, simply stated that ‘he has returned home’ when asked where his client was, adding that he had not been in contact with Puigdemont since the latter left the Arc de Triomf.
Junts tweeted that ‘president Puigdemont has kept his word’ by returning the Barcelona, attempting to take his seat in parliament (albeit unsuccessfully) and avoided arrest. They also compared the police response to a ‘terrorist alert’.
Catalan singer Lluís Llach, himself an exile during the Francoist dictatorship, tweeted at 11.22pm Catalan time that ‘president Puigdemont has asked me to notify you that he is healthy, safe and, above all, FREE’.
As of the time of writing, Puigdemont’s whereabouts are still unknown. He may be somewhere in Girona, his hometown, or he may be back in Belgium, where he has been living for the past seven years.
What is clear is that yesterday, Carles Puigdemont, the leader and hero of a struggling pro-independence movement, outwitted an entire police force and sleeps freely still. Meanwhile, for Salvador Illa, who was ultimately elected president of the government of Catalonia yesterday, his big day was overshadowed by a popular predecessor and a heavy-handed (and failed) police response.
In other words, however much they may like to think the election this year has drawn a line under the push for independence, Puigdemont returned at just the right moment to remind Catalonia - and Spain - that the question of Catalonia’s future is not going away any time soon.