Spain’s constitutional court is anticipated to rule this week that a charge of misuse of public funds against former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont is covered by an amnesty law enacted by the Spanish government in 2024. This decision would clear the final legal barrier to his return to Catalonia after nearly nine years in exile, which began in 2017 when he fled to avoid imprisonment for his involvement in a failed independence movement.
However, the region to which Puigdemont may return bears little resemblance to the political and social landscape he departed. The intense pro-independence fervor that once characterized Catalonia has substantially diminished. Since 2024, the region has been governed by the Socialist Party of Catalonia, marking the first time since 1980 that a non-nationalist party holds control. This shift has corresponded with a period of improved relations between Barcelona and Madrid, replacing years of conflict and provocation. Additionally, younger Catalans, while aging since 2017, have become preoccupied with pressing economic concerns such as employment and housing affordability rather than sovereignty questions.
Demographic changes have equally transformed Catalan society. The foreign-born population has increased from 13.8 percent to 18.7 percent, with Barcelona experiencing particularly significant immigration, where 32 percent of residents are immigrants from 118 countries. This transformation raises fundamental questions about Catalan identity that complicate traditional nationalist narratives.
The political landscape has also shifted rightward among some factions. The emergence of Aliança Catalana, a far-right nationalist party with exclusionary positions on immigration and ethno-national identity, has pulled even mainstream nationalist parties toward more hardline stances. Support for independence, which never reached 50 percent historically, currently hovers in the low 40s.
Puigdemont’s political appeal has traditionally rested on identity and historical grievances against Spain. Yet as Catalonia becomes increasingly multicultural and multilingual, with a growing population lacking ancestral connections to regional conflicts, his vision of an independent nation-state founded on singular cultural and linguistic identity may encounter greater resistance than in previous decades.
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