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The European deputy and outgoing president of the Junts party per Catalunya, Carles Puigdemont, delivers a speech during the congress of the Catalan separatist party Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) in Argeles-sur-Mer, southern France, on June 4, 2022. Photo: Raymond Roig /AFP.
The Catalan independence leader Carles Puigdemont left formally on Saturday the presidency of his party, whose address will fall to the president. now in the hard-line separatist Laura Borràs and the pardoned former member of the regional government Jordi Turull.
“This first face-to-face congress of mine turns out to be the last as president”, affirmed Puigdemont in his farewell as president of Junts per Catalunya, before the militants of the pro-independence formation gathered at a congress held in the French town of Argelès-sur-Mer, some thirty kilometers from the Spanish border. ola.
“Organizations have power and have to know how to take over, and at Junts per Catalunya we are doing it fabulously”, he added.
In an open letter to militants, Puigdemont, 59, had already announced last month that he would not run for re-election.because the formation needed “a more involved presidency” than he could offer.
Despite the fact that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Provisionally granted immunity as an MEP at the end of May, Puigdemont continues in a complex judicial situation.
Claimed by Spain for crimes of sedition and embezzlement, the former regional president is still waiting for the European justice to rule on the scope of his immunity, and whether it can effectively protect him from the extradition he is requesting. Madrid.
Fleeting to Belgium shortly after the failed declaration of independence in 2017, Puigdemont could not be tried, despite unlike nine of his former colleagues in the regional executive, later sentenced to up to 13 years in prison.
Almost a year ago, however, the government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez pardoned the president. to all the prisoners.
Among them was Jordi Turull, who was officially appointed the new general secretary of the party and will A tandem with the president of the Catalan regional parliament Laura Borràs, representative of the hardest separatism.
a balanced representation of the two great currents of the formation.
Junts per Catalunya is the heir party to the old Convergència i Unió, which dominated Catalonia. The government of this wealthy region in northeastern Spain has been in power since 1980, when the first autonomous elections were held after the arrival of democracy.
Currently, with 32 of the 135 seats , is the third political force in the Catalan Parliament and a minority partner in the regional government of the pro-independence coalition with the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC, for its acronym in Catalan).
The Clashes between partners are constant, since Junts is very critical of the dialogue path with the central government undertaken by ERC, supported by Pedro Sánchez in the Madrid parliament.
One of the most skeptical about this negotiation is Puigdemont, focus on his role as president of the Consell per la República, a kind of Catalan government-in-exile based in the Belgian city of Waterloo.