The ruling of the General Court of the EU has been a harsh and unexpected blow to Junts' strategy to emerge triumphant in its ongoing conflict with the Government of Spain. For many months, the pro-independence leaders have even speculated on the possibility that this sentence could allow Carles Puigdemont to return to Catalonia once his parliamentary immunity was recognized. In the end, it has not been like that – “it was not what we expected,” Puigdemont said yesterday – and now the door is left open for the Supreme Court to issue a Euro-warrant to arrest him and the other pro-independence leaders who are in Brussels.
Despite the fact that yesterday's ruling can be appealed and revoked by a higher court, it is clear that Puigdemont's judicial journey will be lengthened over time and that his great commitment to defeating the Spanish State on the pitch will dissipate. of the European courts of justice.
Junts will now have to decide whether to hold the pulse until the end or choose to seek dialogue with the Government of Spain as Esquerra did. The Republicans took advantage of the window of opportunity that Pedro Sánchez offered them to negotiate pardons and reforms of the Penal Code. Puigdemont always rejected this path and his leaders abjured the dialogue table and any other partial negotiation with the Executive.
It does not seem that they are going to change their attitude after yesterday's sentence and even more so when the perspective indicated by the polls is that the tenant who will sit in the Moncloa palace will be Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who does not seem to be very in favor of negotiating with Catalan separatists. In any case, the future consequences of yesterday's ruling should be taken into account by the Junts leadership when choosing in Congress between a strategy of blockade and confrontation or one of dialogue and negotiation like the one that has characterized in recent years to ERC and PDECat. We will not get tired of writing that the solution to Puigdemont's future must be a political negotiation, but there must be will on both sides. Yesterday's sentence helps keep our feet on the ground.
