Carles Puigdemont returned from Germany on Saturday after Spain failed in an attempt to extradite him on charges of rebellion over an illegal declaration of independence.
MADRID — The former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont returned from Germany to Belgium on Saturday after Spain failed in an attempt to extradite him on charges of rebellion over an illegal declaration of independence.
Mr. Puigdemont said he would continue traveling around Europe to raise support for the cause of Catalan independence. He fled to Belgium in October after Madrid imposed direct rule on the region after his separatist administration declared independence.
“This will not be my last stop; this is not the end of my journey. I will travel around Europe to the four corners of the continent to defend our cause,” he said at a news conference held in Brussels alongside the current Catalan leader, Quim Torra, who had traveled to Spain to greet him.
Mr. Puigdemont, 55, was arrested on March 25 at a gas station in the northern German region of Schleswig-Holstein while returning to Belgium after a journey to Finland.
A German court ruled this month that he could be extradited to Spain to face a separate charge for misuse of public funds, but not for the more serious charge of rebellion.
Under European law, that means Spain would have been banned from trying him on the more serious charge if the extradition were to proceed. The Spanish court rejected that proposal, lifting the arrest warrant altogether.
The charges against Mr. Puigdemont and the five others remain in place, however, meaning they would be arrested if they return to Spain.
Relations between Spain’s central government in Madrid and the Catalan capital, Barcelona, have thawed in recent weeks, with Mr. Sanchez hosting cordial talks with Mr. Torra in Madrid this month.
But Mr. Sanchez, who took office in June after his more hard-line conservative predecessor, Mariano Rajoy, lost a confidence vote, has ruled out allowing any referendum on independence, saying it goes against Spain’s constitution.
Mr. Puigdemont said on Saturday that Mr. Sanchez’s period of grace regarding the Catalan issue was over and that it was a time for action, not words.
