Carles Puigdemont, former Generalitat president, publishes an article in EL PAÍS stating that Spanish socialism's only way out is breakup and recognizing the right to self-determination. He criticizes the PSOE's 2017 alignment with the PP and Spain's current climate of social division. He highlights the Brussels Pact as a turning point that strained political relations.
In his article published on November 23, 2025, in EL PAÍS, Carles Puigdemont i Casamajó, former Generalitat president and leader of Junts per Catalunya, analyzes Spain's political tensions stemming from the Catalan independence process. He describes how the Brussels Pact, signed two years ago, stirred Spanish politics by breaking official narratives, referencing the conflict from 1714, agreeing to investigations into 'lawfare' against independentists, and promoting an amnesty law, a taboo until then.
Puigdemont recalls the vehemence of socialist leaders like Salvador Illa, current Generalitat president, who exclaimed: “There will be no amnesty or anything like that!”. He mentions negotiations in Switzerland with an international mediator, demands for official Catalan status in the EU and Congress of Deputies. Two years later, the protagonist of the first pact photo is in prison for corruption, there are criminal proceedings against President Pedro Sánchez's entourage and family, and Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz has been convicted and disqualified.
The piece warns of a boiling social climate in Spain, akin to historical convulsive periods with tragic or tragicomic ends, such as wars, dictatorships, or the 23F coup. Puigdemont feels addressed as a European democrat and Catalan independentist, not as a Spaniard by obligation. He criticizes the PSOE's surrender by aligning with the PP in October 2017, after the king's speech on October 3, and their current 'abyss' position. He proposes that Spanish socialism undertake the breakup it avoided 50 years ago, recognizing the right to self-determination—a concept it defended for decades—instead of perpetuating pacts with the old regime like the Transition and Francoist monarchy.