Quim Torra, Catalonia's new separatist leader, was sworn in Thursday during a brief ceremony without central government representatives in which he avoided promising to obey the constitution and pledged instead to follow "the will of the Catalan people".

The ceremony marks the end of nearly seven months of political limbo in the northeastern Spanish region, which has been under direct rule from Madrid since the central government deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont following a failed declaration of independence on October 27.

"I promise to loyally fulfil the duties of the post of regional president being faithful to the will of the Catalan people represented by the Catalan parliament," Torra said as he was sworn in, using the same formula as his predecessor and mentor Puigdemont.

The 55-year-old did not promise to obey the Constitution nor the statute that regulates Catalonia's autonomy.

He appeared flanked only by a Catalan flag, without the traditional Spanish flag and portrait of the king that protocol states must be present, in a small side-room of the regional government building in Barcelona.

Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis criticised the ceremony, saying it done "on the sly", as if Torra "were a second-rate president".

The hardline separatist Torra was handpicked by Puigdemont, who is currently in Berlin awaiting potential extradition to Spain, where he faces jail on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds.

He has stressed he is merely a "caretaker president" as he awaits the return of Puigdemont, whom he considers the "legitimate" leader, and has pledged to keep fighting for independence from Spain.

Torra's swearing-in ceremony only lasted a few minutes and the central government decided not to send any representatives in a sign of tensions between the two.

There were no representatives of political parties or civil society either.

As a deferential gesture towards Puigdemont, Torra did not put on the medallion that regional presidents usually wear when they are sworn in.

Now Torra needs to form a government, a prerequisite for Madrid to lift direct rule.

But this isn't assured as Torra has said he wants to reintegrate deposed regional ministers into his government, many of whom are either in preventative custody for their role in the secession drive or in self-exile like Puigdemont.

If the Spanish government decides this is illegal, it could maintain direct rule over the region as requested by centre-right party Ciudadanos, whose hardline stance towards the Catalan crisis has resounded in Spain.

The party is now threatening to overtake Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party in regional and municipal elections next year.

In the more immediate future, however, Rajoy needs the support of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) in parliament to approve the 2018 budget.

The PNV wants Madrid to lift direct rule as it strongly supports regional autonomy and is sympathetic to the Catalan cause.

Caught between the two, Rajoy has pledged to watch Torra closely and maintain control over regional finances to avoid public money going to any separatist initiatives, and has also said he is willing to meet the Catalan leader.

Meanwhile, another battle is going on in the courts, with 25 separatist leaders being investigated for rebellion or other offences, nine of whom are in preventative custody and another seven abroad.

On Wednesday, a Belgian judge rejected the extradition request of three former Catalan ministers due to irregularities in the arrest warrants, dealing a blow to Spain.

A court in Germany has also rejected extraditing Puigdemont to Spain for rebellion, a very serious charge that implies violence took place and which many legal experts have discarded.

The court is still considering whether to hand him over to Spain on the lesser charge of misuse of public funds.

Faced with these setbacks, Spain's Supreme Court has said it is was considering replacing rebellion with sedition, which does not imply violence took place and is less severe. </s> Newly elected Catalonia regional president, Quim Torra, is applauded by pro-indpendence parties during an investiture debate at the regional parliament in Barcelona, Spain, May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Albert Gea

MADRID (Reuters) - The Catalan parliament elected hard-line separatist Quim Torra as regional leader on Monday, heralding an end to seven months of direct rule from Madrid but also more political uncertainty in a region that retains a mandate to seek a split from Spain.

The deeply-divided parliament voted 66 in favor, 65 against and 4 abstentions for the election of Torra, handpicked by the region’s exiled former leader Carles Puigdemont. </s> BARCELONA: Quim Torra, Catalonia's new separatist leader, was sworn in Thursday in a brief ceremony without central government representatives where he avoided promising to obey the constitution and pledged instead to follow "the will of the Catalan people."

"I promise to loyally fulfil the duties of the post of regional president being faithful to the will of the Catalan people represented by the Catalan parliament," he said, using the same formula as his predecessor and mentor Carles Puigdemont.

The 55-year-old did not promise to obey the statute that regulates Catalonia's autonomy either.

He appeared flanked only by a Catalan flag, without the traditional Spanish flag and portrait of the king that protocol states must be present, in a small side-room of the regional government building in Barcelona.

The ceremony marks the end of close to seven months of political limbo in this region of northeastern Spain which has been under direct rule from Madrid since it deposed Puigdemont after a failed declaration of independence on October 27.

Torra, a hardline separatist, was handpicked by Puigdemont, who is currently in Berlin awaiting potential extradition to Spain where he faces jail on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds.

He has stressed he is merely a "caretaker president" as he awaits the return of Puigdemont, whom he considers the "legitimate" leader, and has pledged to keep fighting for independence from Spain.

Torra's swearing-in ceremony only lasted a few minutes and the central government decided not to send any representatives in a sign of tensions between the two.

There were no representatives of political parties or civil society either, and only a few people close to Torra, regional parliamentary speaker Roger Torrent, a top regional government official and the head of Catalan police were present.

As a deferential gesture towards Puigdemont, Torra did not put on the medallion that regional presidents usually wear when they are sworn in.

But even before the ceremony, Torra drew controversy over a series of tweets and articles written over the past years deemed to show hate towards the Spanish.

He for instance described Spain as "a country that exports misery" and branded those who do not defend the Catalan language and culture "scavengers, vipers and hyenas."

Even anti-racism group SOS Racisme Catalunya waded in, saying his past discourse was "dangerous" and "based in prejudices." </s> Quim Torra was sworn in as Catalan president on Thursday. Photo: Alberto Estévez / POOL / AFP

New Catalonia president Quim Torra on Saturday named two former ministers, jailed by Madrid for backing independence from Spain, together with two others who fled into exile, to his regional government.

Torra appointed his government by decree but it could still be blocked by Spain, which has insisted his administration be "legal and viable" after it imposed direct rule on the region in October when the then Catalan government declared independence.

Torra named 13 "advisors" to his government, including Jordi Turull and Josep Rull, who are currently being held in custody just outside Madrid.

Two others, Toni Comin and Lluis Puig, are in exile in Belgium, where they fled with deposed Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont.

Turull and Rull both accepted their nominations on Twitter.

Torra was elected by the Catalan parliament on Monday and sworn in Thursday, in a move that marks the end of nearly seven months of political limbo in the northeastern Spanish region, which has been under direct rule from Madrid since the central government deposed Puigdemont following a failed declaration of independence on October 27.

Torra, a 55-year-old editor who has long campaigned for independence, described himself as a "caretaker president" as he awaits the return of Puigdemont, whom he considers the "legitimate" leader.

In a brief swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, Torra promised to "loyally fulfil the duties of the post of regional president being faithful to the will of the Catalan people represented by the Catalan parliament." But he did not promise to obey the Spanish Constitution nor the statute that regulates Catalonia's autonomy. He appeared flanked only by a Catalan flag, without the traditional Spanish flag and portrait of the king that protocol states must be present, in a small side-room of the regional government building in Barcelona. The Spanish government criticised Torra's choices as a "new provocation" given that "some of them are on the run from justice or in detention". A government statement said Madrid "will analyse the viability" of Torra's team -- a sign the capital will delay formalising their appointment. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis criticised the ceremony, saying it was done "on the sly", as if Torra "were a second-rate president". And on Friday, government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo had warned that "an advisor or minister cannot exercise their duties as such while they are in prison." But Torra had written to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, requesting a meeting "without any conditions" in a gesture that observers could herald as an easing of tensions between Madrid and the separatists.

Puigdemont, who first fled to Belgium, was detained in Germany in March after Spain issued a European arrest warrant against him. Madrid wants him extradited to Spain to try him on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds for staging an independence referendum in Catalonia on October 1 even though the courts had ruled it unconstitutional.

A German court last month dismissed the extradition request for Puigdemont on the rebellion allegations and released him on bail.

Spanish prosecutors have since handed over new information to Germany they hope will prove the use of violence, to justify the rebellion charge and their extradition request. </s> Quim Torra has been sworn in as the 131st president of Catalonia amid growing pressure over the “xenophobic” and anti-Spanish tone of his past writings and comments.



Torra, a hardline Catalan nationalist handpicked by the region’s deposed president, Carles Puigdemont, was elected by 66 votes to 65 on Monday and assumed office at a low-key ceremony in Barcelona on Thursday.

“I promise to loyally fulfil the duties of the post of regional president being faithful to the will of the Catalan people represented by the Catalan parliament,” he said, using the same formula as Puigdemont and avoiding mention of obeying the Spanish constitution. Central government representatives did not attend the ceremony.

Since his appointment the 55-year-old lawyer and editor has been dogged by accusations that he is Puigdemont’s puppet and that his long history of anti-Spanish comments makes him unfit to lead a government.



Six years ago, Torra wrote an article in which he described Spanish-speakers in Catalonia as “carrion-feeders, vipers and hyenas” who hated the Catalan language and culture and were “beasts in human form”.



“It is a sick phobia,” he wrote. “There is something Freudian in these beasts, a rough patch in their DNA.”

In a string of tweets written the same year, Torra suggested that “Spaniards know only how to plunder”, claimed that Catalonia had been under Spanish occupation since 1714 and said Spaniards had long since removed the word “shame” from the dictionary. He later apologised “if anyone was offended by the tweets”.

He has also been ridiculed for saying that Catalonia was suffering “a humanitarian crisis”.

Politicians including Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the opposition Socialist party, have criticised the “xenophobic nature” of his past pronouncements.

On Tuesday, a Catalan anti-racism group took Torra to task for repeatedly using “a dangerous, irresponsible and unacceptable discourse, based on prejudices”.

The Spanish justice ministry declined to comment on reports that prosecutors were looking into the possibility of bringing charges of racial hate crimes against Torra over his tweets and articles.

Although Torra has said he wants to hold talks with Rajoy, he insists that Puigdemont remains the “legitimate president” of Catalonia and has vowed to try to restore his predecessor’s sacked cabinet to their previous posts and push on with plans to create an independence republic.

The region has been under direct control from Madrid since the end of October last year, when Rajoy responded to Puigdemont’s unilateral independence referendum and the subsequent declaration of independence by firing the Catalan president and his cabinet and calling new elections.

However, Rajoy’s electoral gamble failed to pay off: the pro-independence bloc retained its parliamentary majority and Puigdemont, who remains in self-imposed exile in Germany, finally anointed Torra as his successor after efforts to install three other candidates, including himself, failed.



Torra’s closeness to Puigdemont and similarly firm stance on independence have not gone unnoticed.

A cartoon in El Mundo this week showed the former president as a fairy godmother, telling a Pinocchio-Torra puppet: “And if you’re really good, I’ll turn you into a real boy.”

Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Carlos III University in Madrid, said Torra was likely to prove a divisive choice both inside Catalonia and within the independence movement itself, and that Puigdemont had chosen him as a means of maintaining the current situation of tension and polarisation.

“It suits Puigdemont better because at the end of the day, it reinforces the idea of a stopgap presidency, which will be subordinate to his presidency in Berlin,” said Simón. “It’s about the idea of trying to restore the last government rather than trying to move things forward, like being a statue made of salt, paralysed and always looking backwards.”

Antonio Barroso, an analyst at the political risk advisory firm Teneo Intelligence, said Puigdemont was using Torra as a means to remain relevant at home and abroad and was “prioritising his own strategy over the unity of the pro-independence movement”.

Barroso said that Torra’s anti-Spanish declarations would damage the independence movement’s international image, with the president’s old articles being seized on by opponents of secession.

“The whole rhetoric of the independence movement says: ‘This is about democracy.’ But now the other side can say it’s not about democracy because clearly you have someone with ideas that try to exclude one part of the population.”

Some see the advent of Torra as proof that a latent strain of supremacism is seeping into the Catalan mainstream.

“Catalan nationalism has always been characterised by what you could call a ‘civic nationalism’; it’s always been based on integrating people who come into Catalonia and on a non-ethnic idea of who Catalans are,” said Pau Marí-Klose, a professor of sociology at the University of Zaragoza.

But the polarisation and radicalisation brought about by Puigdemont’s push for independence – and the Spanish authorities’ response to it – had “slightly opened the door” to Torra’s school of thought and reignited old feelings of resentment.

“The idea that Catalonia has been mistreated by Spain has gathered more and more momentum during the process and has somehow given rise to these very supremacist ideas: that anything Spanish is despicable; that Spanish culture is prone to authoritarianism and isn’t a truly European culture, whereas Catalan culture is,” said Marí-Klose.

“There’s a metaphor that you see, even in cartoons, of Spain as an abusive husband and Catalonia as the wife trying to leave the relationship but isn’t allowed … Torra feeds off that but that doesn’t mean that the majority of Catalans buy into these ideas.” </s> MADRID (Reuters) - The Catalan parliament elected hard-line separatist Quim Torra as regional leader on Monday, heralding an end to seven months of direct rule from Madrid but also more political uncertainty in a region that retains a mandate to seek a split from Spain.

The deeply-divided parliament voted 66 in favor, 65 against and 4 abstentions for the election of Torra, handpicked by the region’s exiled former leader Carles Puigdemont. </s> The new Catalan government led by Quim Torra has officially assumed its powers, thus ending Madrid's direct rule over the autonomous Spanish region.

Quim Torra says that he wants to talk with the new Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez.

The Generalitat's first session will be held on Saturday. Its 13 members have all been sworn in by Torra and promised to perform their duties in accordance with the law.

In late May, Madrid refused to recognize a cabinet proposed by Torra, which included exiled and imprisoned Catalan politicians. Torra said the actions of the Spanish government broke the law and violated his political rights.

He took the oath of office on May 17 but did not swear allegiance to either the Spanish king or constitution.

Nevertheless, the Spanish government approved Torra's second Cabinet list. On Friday, a decree on new regional government appointments was published in the Official Gazette of the Government of Catalonia. </s> Newly elected Catalan regional leader Quim Torra speaks to reporters outside the Estremera prison in Estremera Thomson Reuters MADRID (Reuters) - Nationalists regained control of Catalonia's regional government on Saturday as a new cabinet was sworn in, automatically ending just over seven months of direct rule from Madrid by Spain's central government.

The cabinet led by Quim Torra, a close aide to former Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont, took over on the day Socialist Pedro Sanchez, who has said he wants talks on Catalonia but opposes any independence referendum, was officially sworn in as new Spanish prime minister.

Sanchez' predecessor, the conservative Mariano Rajoy, imposed direct rule over Catalonia at the end of October after nationalists led by Puigdemont held an independence referendum deemed illegal by Spanish courts.

According to the Spanish constitution, direct rule from Madrid was due to end the moment a new regional government was put in place in Barcelona.

It took several tense months, after snap regional elections were held in December, for Catalan nationalists to get a new cabinet approved by the regional parliament and go past Madrid's moves to block any candidate in self-imposed exile, like Puigdemont, or in jail. </s> Separatist lawmaker Quim Torra, candidate for regional president, leaves the chamber at the end of the parliamentary session in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, May 12, 2018. Catalonia's separatists have failed to elect a new leader for the restive Spanish region, likely leaving them with one more chance to form a government or face new elections. Candidate Quim Torra fell short on Saturday of the absolute majority of 68 votes needed to be elected on a first round. Torra, a fervent secessionist, will have a second opportunity on Monday when only a simple majority of more "Yes" than "No" votes is required. less
Quim Torra is sworn in as the 131st President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, 200 days after the cessation of the government of Puigdemont and the direct rule. He does not swear on the Constitution and the Statute of Autonomy, but rather on "the will of the people of Catalonia".