The dashed dreams of an independent Catalonia
He fled Spain in October without having accomplished his dream of converting Catalonia into an independent republic. But after more than eight months in self-exile, wanted by Spain, Carles Puigdemont could be coming home... to prison. A German court on Thursday gave the green light for his extradition — but only for misuse of public funds and not the more serious offence of rebellion, as wanted by Spain’s Supreme Court. A bittersweet decision for the 55-year-old former journalist who has dreamt of independence since his youth, long before the separatist movement leapt onto the political fore in the wealthy northeastern region.
Puigdemont became president of Catalonia in January 2016 after an election which saw separatists win a majority in the regional parliament for the first time. Less than two years later, on October 1, 2017, he helped stage an independence referendum even though the courts had ruled it unconstitutional. Then at the end of October, he fled Spain after being deposed by Madrid and his region put under direct rule over a failed declaration of independence. A virtual unknown when he was elected president of the Spanish region of 7.5 million people, Puigdemont, who combs his hair in a shaggy Beatles-style mop, became the main enemy of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government.
In Amer, the small mountainous village of 2,200 people where he grew up, and in Girona, where Puigdemont served as mayor from 2011 to 2016, he is recalled as a convinced separatist. “In Catalonia, many people became separatists in an allergic reaction to Madrid’s policies.
Puigdemont has never hidden his separatist tendencies, not even when he joined his predecessor Artur Mas’s CDC party in 1980 at a time when it merely wanted to negotiate greater autonomy for Catalonia — far from the idea of breaking away from Spain. In his months abroad since the secession bid, he was determined to keep a high profile. He was the separatists’ candidate of choice to return as Catalan president after December regional elections saw pro-independence parties win again. But the courts decided otherwise, judging he could not rule the region from abroad. So in May he stepped aside in favour of Quim Torra, an editor who is also a dyed-in-thewool partisan of independence.
But Torra, seen as a mere puppet of Puigdemont, has so far remained in his shadow.