Puigdemont says he will attend Thursday's investiture plenary
- The former Catalan president has been in Brussels since 2017, but has decided to return for the investiture debate of the next President of the Generalitat. In this regard, it has denounced that "these are not conditions of democratic normality" and has recalled the risk of arrest involved in the return.
The former Catalan president and leader of Junts per Catalunya, Carles Puigdemont, has announced in a video broadcast through social networks that he will return to Catalonia. Puigdemont has stated that the Catalan Parlament has summoned all Members for the investiture debate of the next President of the Generalitat on 8 August, and that he too "wants and must be", so he has decided to return from exile to Catalonia. "Under conditions of democratic normality, it would be unnecessary and unimportant for a Member like me to announce his intention to attend the meeting. But ours are not conditions of democratic normality," Puigdemont said, while warning that neither he nor Mr Lluís Puig can go "freely".
The former Catalan president has argued that he and Puig cannot go "freely" because they are "in the face of a long persecution" for "allowing the Catalans to vote in a referendum of self-determination" and because "the Supreme Court refuses to comply with the approved and current amnesty law". Faced with the refusal to approve the Amnesty Law, he referred to the "attitude of rebellion" of some judges of the Spanish Supreme Court. He stressed that “this challenge must be met” and that “there is no other way to democratic normality than the end of political repression”.
The video mentions the danger of detention and denounces that it would be “arbitrary and illegal”. According to him, detention would not be for being "independentists", but for being "democrats". The Consell of the Catalan Republic has called for the institutional reception of Puigdemont on 8 August at 08:00 at the Passeig de Lluis Companys in Barcelona.
Puigdemont has criticized the Government of Spain, which does not seem to “be very concerned about the government of Spain” and which “with the future government of Catalonia will be indifferent”.
One month after the tsunami case file
Puigdemont’s decision comes about a month after the Supreme Court of the Tsunami case, which took place on 8 July. The Appellate Chamber considered that the last three years of investigation into the Tsunami judicial case should be annulled, as it had been prolonged "illegally".
As a result, ERC Secretary General Marta Rovira, ERC Deputy Rubén Wagensberg, businessman Oleguer Serra de Òmniun Cultural, journalist Josep Majó and open camp journalist Jesús Rodríguez, who were charged in the exiled Tsunami case, as read in ARGIA, returned to Catalonia.
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