EU Court Clears Spanish Amnesty

The EU's highest court ruled on 16 July that Spain's Catalan amnesty law does not breach EU law. For Maltese readers, the useful point is the mechanism: Luxembourg removed one EU-law objection to the statute, but it did not decide Carles Puigdemont's fate. Spain's Supreme Court still refuses to apply the amnesty to him, and his national arrest warrant remains active while he stays in Belgium (CURIA press release No 112/26, Euronews).

What Luxembourg actually decided

Spanish courts had put three questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union, sitting in its Grand Chamber, the formation used for the most authoritative rulings. Did the amnesty law harm the EU's financial interests? Did it breach EU anti-terrorism rules? Did its two-month deadline for judges to act force them to ignore pending guidance from Luxembourg?

The answers were deliberately narrow. Amnesty remains a power of the member state. Public spending linked to the Catalan independence campaign did not, by itself, damage the EU budget (Brussels Signal). EU anti-terrorism rules did not prevent an amnesty designed for political reconciliation (Al Jazeera). And where the Spanish law's deadline would force judges to rule before Luxembourg could answer a referred question, judges must disregard that deadline (CURIA press release).

The court did not say Puigdemont must be amnestied. It did not order Spain to withdraw his arrest warrant. It did not decide whether the law's exclusion for conduct involving "personal enrichment" covers his case. Those are questions for the Spanish courts (Politico, CURIA press release).

Two courts, two paths, both in Madrid

The Supreme Court controls Puigdemont's criminal file. Its investigating judge has refused to apply the amnesty to the remaining misuse-of-public-funds charge. The reasoning is the live issue: the amnesty law excludes conduct involving personal benefit, and the judge treats Puigdemont's alleged use of public money for the independence campaign as falling within that exclusion (el Constitucional, NRC). The CJEU weakened one part of that refusal by dismissing the EU-budget argument. But the domestic question remains: does the "personal enrichment" exclusion fit his case? That is Spanish law, not EU law.

A second route runs through Spain's Constitutional Court. In June 2025, it ruled that the amnesty law was broadly compatible with the Spanish constitution (Brussels Signal). Puigdemont has now filed an amparo, a constitutional appeal arguing that the Supreme Court's refusal to apply the amnesty breaches his fundamental rights. If the Constitutional Court overturns the Supreme Court's reading, both the warrant and the amnesty decision would have to be revisited (NRC).

Until a Spanish court formally lifts the arrest warrant, returning from Belgium carries real legal risk. Belgian and Dutch reporting is clear on the practical result: this is a step closer, not a free pass (De Morgen).

Why Europe is watching a Spanish case

This is why the ruling has been covered well beyond Spain. Malta knows the EU's legal order is not an abstract classroom idea; for a small member state, the line between domestic law and EU law can decide whether a national policy survives at all. In this case, Luxembourg did not take over Spain's politics. It said which objections EU law could sustain, and which questions had to stay in Madrid.

German reporting has also recalled 2018, when a Schleswig-Holstein court handled a Spanish extradition request for Puigdemont and showed that European Arrest Warrants, the system through which one EU country asks another to surrender a suspect, do not erase national legal categories (Deutschlandfunk). The question then was whether another country would enforce Spain's warrant. The question now is whether Spain applies its own amnesty. European courts can remove EU-law objections, but they cannot make a member state use the law it passed.

The CJEU drew the line between what EU law can block and what remains a national choice. Spain's amnesty survived that test. Whether Puigdemont benefits from the law his movement helped produce is now for the Spanish Supreme Court and Constitutional Court to decide. Luxembourg narrowed the case. Madrid still controls the door Puigdemont wants to walk through.