Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, currently living in Belgium, said on Friday that adequate conditions for his return to Spain had not been created yet.
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th September, 2018) Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, currently living in Belgium, said on Friday that adequate conditions for his return to Spain had not been created yet.
Puigdemont fled to Brussels in October 2017 to avoid sedition charges, related to Catalonia's move to declare independence. In late July, he voiced his readiness to continue his political activity related to the Catalan independence from Spain, and pledged to make effort to achieve the release of all the political prisoners in Spain.
"Conditions for my return [to Spain] have not been created yet, we [pro-Catalan independence politicians] are exposed to harsh repression," Puigdemont told the RTBF broadcaster.
He specified that if the European judiciary ordered to him extradited to Spain, where he faces the risk of being arrested, he would "naturally agree with this decision."
Asked whether he was going to run in the European Parliament election next year as a candidate from the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), Puigdemont said that this was "technically possible," but no one had addressed him with such a request yet. He added that this was not on his list of top political priorities.
In mid-August, amid media reports on the possibility of him being offered to run on the N-VA list, the former Catalan president said that he was not going to do so, as he was in Belgium only temporarily and was focused on Catalonia's independence efforts.
On October 1, 2017, the northeastern Spanish region held an independence referendum, which resulted in 90 percent of voters supporting Catalonia's secession from Spain. On October 27, 2017, the Catalan government proclaimed the region's independence, but the central Spanish government responded by imposing direct governance over Catalonia just one day later, refusing to accept the vote.
While Puigdemont fled to Brussels, several other pro-independence Catalan politicians have been jailed and currently remain in pre-trial detention in Catalonia's penitentiary institutions.
