Overview

• Salvador Illa and Carles Puigdemont met for roughly 90 minutes at the Catalan delegation in Brussels, their first in-person meeting.
• Neither leader held a press conference, with Illa casting the encounter as institutional dialogue and Puigdemont saying democratic normality remains absent.
• The setting was deliberately austere, with no flags and a minimal room agreed by both teams, underscoring the careful choreography of the moment.
• The meeting followed the Constitutional Court’s approval of the amnesty law, but Puigdemont’s legal status remains unresolved as Supreme Court questions persist over malversación.
• Political stakes remain high for Madrid’s arithmetic, and while the Catalan government denies this is a prelude to a Sánchez–Puigdemont meeting, ABC reports the Moncloa photo is being considered for spring.