Coinciding with the fifth anniversary of Carles Puigdemont's departure into exile, the Catalan president has published a letter from Waterloo in which he shows his commitment to the referendum of October 1st, 2017 and the proclamation of independence made by the Parliament, and reviews the personal and political difficulties of carrying out activity to internationalize Catalonia's cause. He also rejects any personal solution for his situation, whether based on the modification of penalties for crimes such as sedition, the granting of pardons or any another method, and states that he has attempted not to lose sight of the fact that the reason for exile is political. He also ventures into inhospitable and unknown terrain, at least in terms of statements he himself has made: the issue of contacts he has had since 2017 with Spanish Socialist envoys who have proposed what he describes as "happy solutions" and which Pedro Sánchez knows about.
Puigdemont says, in his eleven-paragraph text, the following: "In these five years I have not sought any personal solution nor asked anyone to create one on my behalf; I have not looked for a way that I might spend fewest years in a Spanish prison, nor have I expected for myself the benefits that are applied to others. On this matter I have been explicit in public and in private, when replying to all the interlocutors who have addressed me to propose 'happy solutions'. Also, to people from the PSOE who have come to see me several times to generate expectations of good treatment, via reform of the penal code and a pardon. On the condition, of course, that I agree to appear before the Supreme Court. I am sure that Pedro Sánchez knows what am I talking about".
He doesn't say any more, but he says it all. It is enough to guess that at some point or another there has been direct or indirect communication between the Spanish government palace and Waterloo, and that the Catalan president rejected the proposals that were put to him from Madrid. The 'happy solutions', that being the expression used, to establish a bridgehead that would facilitate his return to Catalonia, involving a journey through the courts and, obviously, prison too, even if it was until the granting of a pardon. A journey that, if Puigdemont had accepted, would have made the path to exile and the subsequent internationalization of the conflict into a dead end, and would have detracted from the various pronouncements made by different European countries refusing to extradite him and any of his former ministers.
This also occurs, at a time when the European Parliament's legal services have asked Spain's Central Electoral Commission to certify the credentials as MEPs of Puigdemont, Comín, Ponsatí and Solé, and to confirm that they are on the list of 59 positions proclaimed, as a step to maintaining the immunity they enjoy. Also, at the end of November, on the 24th and 25th, the European General Court, based in Luxembourg, will announce its rulings related to the appeal that Puigdemont presented against the European Parliament to withdraw his immunity in the month of last March, although it was later returned to him, because the court accepted the interim measures of protection they claimed until the judges give their ruling.
This is an important judicial step, because Catalan exile has ended up entrusting everything to European justice as a safeguard against Spanish injustice. It is upon this context that the extradition of the exiles pursued by the Spanish Supreme Court will pivot, a matter which Catalan politicians and their lawyers have defended to this day with enormous success in all instances where they have faced the demands of justice.
But let's go back to the beginning: visits from the Spanish government palace to Waterloo did take place, even if there was no result, nor were they made public. Five years after the departure of Puigdemont to Brussels, the president has left it in writing.