The resolution of the judge of the Supreme Court Pablo Llarena, which confirms the application of the amnesty law to the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his former councilor Toni Comín, against whom arrest warrants were pending, opens the door for the immediate return of the latter to Madrid to collect this Thursday his act as a MEP of Junts.
By rejecting a Vox appeal, Llarena assumes that the amnesty law can extend to the crime of embezzlement, in line with the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court, and definitively nullifies the arrest warrants that were still in effect against Puigdemont and Comín, issued in the context of the case regarding the independence process derived from the illegal referendum of 2017.
In the specific case of Toni Comín, the first practical consequence of this decision is that any impediment for him to appear this Thursday in Madrid before the Central Electoral Board (JEC), which has summoned him for the swearing-in or promise of adherence to the Constitution as a MEP, disappears, the last procedure he had pending since the European elections of 2024 to occupy his seat in the European Parliament.
Comín headed the Junts list in the European elections of June 2024 and obtained the only seat of the independentist formation, but he did not take possession because Spanish regulations require in-person attendance at the Central Electoral Board to swear or promise the Constitution and collect the credential. The former councilor then renounced traveling due to the risk of being arrested, so his seat in Strasbourg has remained empty since then, as he has not renounced the act either.
Stay in Belgium and return to Madrid
Comín's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, has informed that the elected MEP will go this Thursday to the headquarters of the JEC, located in the Congress of Deputies, to formalize the adherence to the Spanish Constitution.
The former councilor himself has confirmed that he will travel this Thursday to Madrid to appear before the Central Electoral Board (JEC), which summoned him to complete the act of swearing or promising the Magna Carta.
"On the 22nd I will go to Madrid. Just as during my exile I have had to go sometimes to Paris, Rome, or Amsterdam. And this does not put an end to my exile. My exile ends on the 25th, the day I return to my country. It does not end the day I enter, punctually, the Spanish state," he explained in an interview on "TV3" reported by Europa Press.
Comín had announced that he planned to return from Brussels on Saturday, October 24, crossing the border on foot, although finally that return will take place on Sunday, October 25.
With his return, Junts will regain its representation in the European Parliament, which will integrate into the group of the Liberal Democrats. Comín was already a Member of the European Parliament during the 2019-2024 legislature.
During his stay in Belgium, the former councilor was reported for alleged sexual and psychological harassment by a former assistant, accusations he denied. In March, it emerged that an internal investigation by the European Parliament had found sufficient evidence to refer the case to ordinary justice, while Junts reactivated its own internal investigation into these events in June.