C. Puigdemont is preparing to return to Spain before the early Catalan elections

The move might speed up his return home following years of exile.

The MEP fled Spain to Belgium to avoid prosecution over the failed 2017 Catalan independence bid.

C. Puigdemont at 7 p.m. local time (20:00 Lithuanian time) at a press conference to be held in the south of France, intends to announce whether he will be a candidate.

“We went into exile for the same reasons we will return – for the future of our nation,” Puigdemont, who led a court-banned referendum on Catalonia’s secession from Spain, wrote on the X social network.

Last week, current Catalan leader Pere Aragones called early elections for May 12. The election was called just before a key vote in the national parliament in which Spanish lawmakers approved an amnesty bill for Catalan separatists.

The bill, which aims to end years of efforts to prosecute those linked to the independence drive, is currently being debated in the Senate, but will still return to the lower house of parliament in regarding two months for final approval.

A smiling Puigdemont, 61, told reporters at the time that it might mean he would return to Spain to welcome the new Catalan leader into office.

But members of his hardline separatist party, JxCat, have expressed their enthusiasm that he will contest the high-stakes election, even if he is unable to return to campaign in person.

“After the adoption of the amnesty law, his perspective is no longer exile, but return,” JxCat general secretary Jordi Turullas told El Pais newspaper.

Puigdemont, a year following being named Catalan president in 2016, led an independence drive that sparked Spain’s worst political crisis in decades, then fled to Brussels and was elected to the European Parliament in 2019.

The separatists are divided

The passage of the amnesty law is a milestone for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, as it was a demand by separatist parties in exchange for support in parliament so he can serve another term.

Seven JxCat parties decided to support Mr. Sanchez.

The amnesty law would affect regarding 400 persons, primarily C. Puigdemont.

At the end of February, the Spanish Supreme Court opened an investigation into Puigdemont, who is accused of terrorism due to mass protests.

Even following the law comes into force, there is no guarantee that Mr Puigdemont will not be arrested when he returns to Spain, his lawyer Gonzalo Boye told Catalan radio station RAC1, adding that he will have to “accept the consequences of his decisions”.

Polls show that in Catalonia, where 8 million people live. people, the election battle will be intense.

The results of the poll released on Thursday by the CEO of a polling company run by the Catalan region show that the Catalan branch of Spain’s ruling Socialist Party is leading with 25-29 percent support, while the moderate separatist ERC party has 17-20 percent. respondents’ support, and JxCat – 15-18 percent.

The two separatist parties initially ruled Catalonia in a coalition following the 2021 elections, but in 2022 JxCat withdrew from Mr Aragones’s ERC-led government, deepening divisions within the movement.

While Mr Aragones, who will run once more on the ERC list, has expressed his desire for Mr Puigdemont to return and campaign, he said he believed the JxCat leader’s time was up.

“I respect him for what he has achieved in his career, but I think Catalonia has to look forward,” he told La Vanguardia newspaper on Sunday.