Puigdemont appeals to Spain's top court to lift his arrest warrant

Catalonia's former President Carles Puigdemont is pushing to return to Spain from exile following a European Union Advocate General's ruling generally favourable to the application of Spain's amnesty law, drawn up by the ruling PSOE party and Catalonia's Junts.

Puigdemont, a fugitive separatist currently residing in Vallespir in southern France, has filed an appeal with the Spanish Constitutional Court, asking it to suspend his state arrest warrant and his provisional imprisonment to avoid "irreparable damage" to his fundamental rights and to consider the amnesty law "fully effective and applicable".

The Court of Justice of the European Union, which will ultimately decide on this preliminary ruling by the Court of Auditors, usually follows the Advocate General's opinion, although it is not obliged to do so.

Puigdemont is pressing the Spanish high court, controlled by a left-of-centre majority, just weeks after his political party announced its break with the investiture bloc of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose government depends on the seven votes of Junts in the Congress of Deputies to obtain a simple majority in legislative votes.

Judge Pablo Llanera is maintaining an active arrest warrant against Puigdemont issued by the Supreme Court while waiting for the CJEU proceedings to be resolved.

According to Puigdemont, this represents "an independent infringement of the right to personal freedom and of the appellant's political-representative rights."

Puigdemont asked the Constitutional Court to expressly declare that his arrest suspension will remain in effect until his newly filed appeal is resolved.

The Advocate General argued in his opinion that the amnesty law does not violate European regulations on the protection of the EU's financial interests or its laws against terrorism. Nor does he consider that expenditure linked to the 1 October 2017 referendum constitutes misappropriation of European funds.

However, Judge Dean Spielmann warned that certain procedural mechanisms established by law, such as the two-month limit for a judge to decide whether to apply the amnesty or to lift precautionary measures, could violate the right to adequate judicial protection.

Puigdemont fled Spain in 2017 after organising an unauthorised independence referendum in Catalonia that attracted a police crackdown, smuggling himself out of the country in the boot of a car to avoid arrest.

He has faced charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds carrying maximum sentences of up to 30 years in jail.

Spain passed an amnesty law in May 2024 to grant clemency to hundreds of separatists involved in the 2017 vote, but the Supreme Court ruled it could not be applied to Puigdemont over embezzlement charges.