Puigdemont requests prerogatives as former president

Carles Puigdemont has requested the prerogatives owing to him as the former Catalan president. It has taken him eight months to make the request, after being sacked as head of government by the Spanish executive on October 27, 2017. Puigdemont and the independence movement bitterly criticized that move and claimed Puigdemont was still the "legitimate" president. As a result, he rejected the prerogatives the law grants him as the former leader of the country, which include an office, three employees, an official car with a driver and security services.

In an interview last March, Puigdemont said he would claim these prerogatives once a new Catalan president was appointed. In May 2018, five months after the election, the parliament swore Quim Torra in as the new head of the Catalan government.

Former president in exile

On June 22, Puigdemont requested the entitlements, and the government is now considering how to provide them, taking into account that the former president no longer lives in Catalonia, a situation that has not occured since the law was passed in 2003. Puigdemont is now in Germany pending a decision on his extradition to Spain. If the German judiciary decides not to execute the European arrest warrant against him, Puigdemont intends to move back to Brussels, where he went into exile shortly after being deposed last autumn. In Spain, he is being prosecuted for rebellion and misuse of public funds.

The Catalan leader also has the right to ask for a salary as former president, but he will not claim it as it would be incompatible with his salary as MP in parliament for the pro-independence Junts per Catalunya group.