Catalan parliamentarians elected pro-independence politician Roger Torrent as speaker in a gesture of determination to pursue the declared last year plans to achieve de facto independence, already proclaimed de jure in a highly symbolic procedure after weeks of waiting for a dialogue with Madrid.

Torrent was the preferred candidate for speaker of the two main pro-independence parties Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia).

Unlike Forcadell, a grassroots activist who came to fame as the impassioned president of the Catalan National Assembly, Torrent is a party insider, being a member of ERC since he was 19 years old.