It has taken more than seven years for him to return. The man who was president of Catalonia for 23 years and then for 11 more years was accorded the respect due to a former president and the status of Right Honourable has now been able to re-enter the select club of ex-presidents of the Generalitat. On Monday, Jordi Pujol i Soley ended his ostracism, partly voluntarily, at the age of 91, to take part in a public event organized by the Catalan government in the University of Barcelona's auditorium, alongside the other four former presidents who still maintain public activity: José Montilla, Artur Mas, Carles Puigdemont and Quim Torra. The only one missing was former president Pasqual Maragall, who, for obvious reasons connected to his illness, is removed from any public activity. Previously, there was another round table, featuring MEPs from previous legislatures, such as Oriol Junqueras, Concepción Ferrer, Joan Colom - and also Toni Comín, by videoconference.
The initiative of the Catalan foreign minister, Victòria Alsina, to bring together the former presidents in a round table in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe was more symbolic than political. However, it holds up a common thread - that of the defence of Europeanism - that can be followed through all the tenants of the Palau de la Generalitat. Each one, with the nuances of their era regarding the role of the European institutions: from the essential Europeanism of the eighties of Jordi Pujol and later José Montilla - who took part via a recorded message due to commitments in Madrid - to the European institutions' indifference to the political demands of Catalonia under the presidencies of Mas, Puigdemont - who participated by videoconference from Brussels - and Torra.
As was more than predictable, Pujol was the centre of attention and the one who received the most effusive applause in an ambience that, in general, was predisposed to acknowledge his time as president and the energy with which he defended Catalonia abroad. It is obvious that the judicial situation of the former president in recent years has inevitably limited his activity and his public presence at engagements, which he tends, as a rule, not to accept. But it is also true that in recent times there has been a certain recovery of his legacy within his own political space - often in events of a small scale but without which the institutional leap made on Monday would not have been possible, in which the only one missing was current president Pere Aragonès, taking part at the same time in an event on the tenth anniversary of the Raval complex of Catalonia's audiovisual library, the Filmoteca.
Pujol, who usually has some barrow of his own to push in spite of his age, also wanted to express his sympathy, affection and gratitude to president Puigdemont for his sustained action in Europe. A significant gesture, not at all gratuitous and expressed from a political position which maintains its discrepancies, as he himself was careful to point out. In fact, the debate between the former presidents made it clear that perhaps Europe had not provided all the help that had been expected in the political arena, but it certainly had in judicial terms. Something which has proved insurmountable for the Spanish state, up till now, in all the extradition orders it has formulated, and which has allowed those in exile to continue to take political actions without any obstacles and at liberty.