Catalan Separatist Leader Puigdemont Wins Court Approval To Challenge Embezzlement Charges

Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont. Photo Credit: Carles Puigdemont, X

 October 8, 2025 

By EurActiv

By Inés Fernández-Pontes

(EurActiv) — Spain’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday admitted an appeal lodged by self-exiled Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont and two of his former ministers, Antoni Comín, and Lluis Puig.

The Catalan politicians appealed against the Spanish Supreme Court’s decision not to fully apply a controversial amnesty law, which has seen hundreds of members of the Catalan separatist movement pardoned, by upholding embezzlement charges against them.

In 2018, Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena indicted the three separatist leaders over the misuse of around €1.6 million in public funds to finance the failed 2017 Catalan independence referendum, issuing arrest warrants against them.

Puigdemont, who lives in exile in Belgium, has repeatedly appealed against Llarena’s decision, without success. Comín, a now MEP, and Puig, also reside in Belgium.

Due to the “special constitutional significance” of the appeal, the Constitutional Court will launch a probe into the judge’s decision to uphold embezzlement charges against Puigdemont, Comín and Puig. The court itself has affirmed the constitutionality of the controversial amnesty law back in June.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition approved the amnesty law in 2023, in a bid to secure the backing of Puigdemont’s right-wing Junts MPs to support his re-election campaign. Under the law, hundreds of Catalan separatists involved in the secession movement between 2012 and 2023 have been pardoned.

The European Commission has raised concerns over the compliance of the Spanish amnesty law with EU law, and the EU’s top court (CJEU) initiated proceedings this year to assess whether the Catalan secessionist movement harmed the EU’s financial interests – and whether the amnesty amounts to a politically driven “self-amnesty.”

The CJEU ruling is expected by the end of the year and will be binding on all Spanish courts.