53 Facts About Carles Puigdemont

Carles Puigdemont has been the President of Together for Catalonia since 2024, having previously held the office from 2020 to 2022.

Carles Puigdemont served as the 130th President of the Government of Catalonia from 2016 to 2017.

Carles Puigdemont's government held an independence referendum, which culminated in the unsuccessful Declaration of independence of Catalonia and his removal from office.

Carles Puigdemont then served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2024.

Carles Puigdemont was the director of the Catalan News Agency from 1999 to 2002 and the director of Girona's House of Culture from 2002 to 2004.

Puigdemont's family were supporters of Catalan independence and Puigdemont became involved in politics as a teenager, joining the nationalist Democratic Convergence of Catalonia, the predecessor to the PDeCAT, in 1980.

Carles Puigdemont gave up journalism to pursue a career in politics in 2006 when he was elected as a member of the Parliament of Catalonia for the constituency of Girona.

Carles Puigdemont was elected to the Municipality Council of Girona in 2007 and in 2011 he became Mayor of Girona.

Carles Puigdemont called for fresh talks with the then Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy but these were rejected.

Carles Puigdemont remained in Belgium to avoid arrest if he returned to Spain, with this situation being defined as exile by some, self-imposed exile by some others, and as fugitive from justice.

Carles Puigdemont was released on bail, with the state high court deciding he could not be extradited for "rebellion" as German law does not coincide with Spanish law on the definition thereof, a requirement of his EAW.

Carles Puigdemont was elected as a Member of the European Parliament after the 2019 European Parliament election in Spain.

Carles Puigdemont was born on 29 December 1962 in Amer, a village in the comarca of la Selva in the province of Girona in north-eastern Catalonia, Spain.

Carles Puigdemont received basic education in Amer before, aged nine, he was sent to study at the Church-run Santa Maria del Collell boarding school in Girona where he was taught in Spanish and "learned to be a fighter".

In 1983, aged 21, Carles Puigdemont was involved in a car accident which left him seriously injured and with a slight scar on his face.

Carles Puigdemont joined the El Punt, a pro-independence Catalan language newspaper, as a journalist in 1982.

Carles Puigdemont rose through the ranks to become the paper's editor-in-chief.

Carles Puigdemont wrote a weekly column for the Presencia magazine.

Carles Puigdemont is a member of the Catalan Journalists Association.

Puigdemont was director of ACN until 2002, when the then-president of the Diputacio de Girona, Carles Paramo, offered him the position of director of the Girona cultural centre, the Casa de Cultura, a position he held until 2004.

Carles Puigdemont left journalism to devote himself fully to politics in 2006 when the Convergence and Union electoral alliance invited him to be a candidate for the Parliament of Catalonia.

Carles Puigdemont contested the 2006 regional election as a CiU candidate in the Province of Girona and was elected.

Carles Puigdemont was re-elected at the 2010,2012 and 2015 regional elections, the latter as a Junts pel Si electoral alliance candidate.

Carles Puigdemont contested the 2007 local elections as a CiU candidate in Girona and was elected but the CiU remained in opposition.

At the 2011 local elections, in which Carles Puigdemont was re-elected, the CiU ended the Socialists's 32-year rule in Girona.

Carles Puigdemont was a member of executive committee of the Association of Municipalities for Independence and in July 2015 succeeded Josep Maria Vila d'Abadal as its chair.

Carles Puigdemont resigned as Mayor of Girona on 11 January 2016 as no-one is allowed to be a regional president and a municipal mayor at the same time.

Carles Puigdemont was the first president of Catalonia to refuse to take the oath of loyalty to the Spanish constitution and the Spanish monarch.

In June 2017 Carles Puigdemont announced that the Catalan independence referendum would be held on 1 October 2017.

Carles Puigdemont claimed that he had gone to "the capital of Europe" to speak from a position of "freedom and safety" and that he would not return to Spain unless he was guaranteed a fair trial.

On 1 March 2018, Carles Puigdemont was hoping to be selected by the Catalan Parliament as President of Catalonia again, but the Catalan Parliament heeded warnings from Spain's judiciary and postponed the session in which Carles Puigdemont could be selected.

Subsequently, Carles Puigdemont announced that he was no longer seeking re-election as leader of Catalonia.

On 25 March 2018, while returning to Brussels from a trip to Finland, Carles Puigdemont was stopped in Germany near the Danish border and arrested pursuant to the European warrant that had been reissued against him two days previously.

Carles Puigdemont was free to travel, and chose to return to Belgium.

In January 2019 Carles Puigdemont filed a constitutional application for amparo directed against the president of the Catalan parliament, Roger Torrent and the Board of the Chamber.

The complaint, presented to the Spanish Constitutional Court, argued Carles Puigdemont had been denied the use of his political rights as Torrent did not allow him to delegate his vote from Belgium after Carles Puigdemont's criminal indictment and suspension of his parliamentary condition by Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena.

Carles Puigdemont was placed first on the Lliures per Europa list for the 2019 European Parliament election in Spain and he was elected member of the European Parliament.

Carles Puigdemont spent much of the inaugural session of the European Parliament on 2 July 2019 in the German city of Kehl, across the Rhine from the seat of the European Parliament in the city of Strasbourg, located on French soil and avoided by Puigdemont.

On 20 December 2019, Carles Puigdemont was accredited as an MEP after a ruling from the European Court of Justice said that he was permitted to take on his role as MEP.

The announcement of the arrest prompted Carles Puigdemont to regain a prominent role and to be at the centre of the Catalan political scene.

On 8 August 2024, Carles Puigdemont made a return to Spain after seven years in self-imposed exile in Belgium, delivering a defiant speech at the Arc de Triomf in Barcelona advocating for Catalonia's right to self-determination before quickly disappearing, sparking a large-scale police operation.

The Catalan police set up roadblocks and arrested an officer whose car was reportedly used in Carles Puigdemont's escape, raising questions about the force's involvement.

One of the founders of the youth organization of the right-of-centre Democratic Convergence of Catalonia in the province of Girona, Carles Puigdemont has associated himself since then with the most staunchly pro-independence faction in the party.

In 2017, Carles Puigdemont considered the European Union to be a "club of decadent and obsolescent countries" that was "controlled by a small few", suggesting that Catalonia should be allowed to vote on its exit from the EU if Catalans wanted it.

Carles Puigdemont has rejected an EU which does not protect human rights and the right of representation.

Carles Puigdemont has denied being "europhobic", and he has referred to himself and his party not as eurosceptic but as "euro-demanding".

On 17 February 2022, days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Carles Puigdemont did not support the package of measures designed to aid Ukraine, as issued by the European Parliament.

Some of Carles Puigdemont's aides were previously reported to have links with the Kremlin, including with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In September 2021, the European Parliament, which had previously lifted the parliamentary immunity of Carles Puigdemont, launched a deeper investigation into the possible criminal implications of such contacts.

In May 2024, Carles Puigdemont pointed to the fact that Spain had decided to recognize Palestine but not Kosovo, "a country with which the European Union has diplomatic relations".

Carles Puigdemont accused Spain of helping Turkey "to suppress the Kurds".

Carles Puigdemont said that "Above all, Spain is the country that suppressed the democratic referendum of Catalonia" on 1 October 2017.

Carles Puigdemont is a supporter of Girona FC and FC Barcelona and plays rock guitar and the electric piano.