Quim Torra backs down, names new ministers and pledges to 'act responsibly'

The leader of Junts per Catalunya ('Together for Catalunya', or JxCat) was accused by the national government of stirring up, and threatened with Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution – which strips a region of its self-governing powers – being kept in place, rendering his appointment merely nominal.

Torra has named Elsa Artadi as minister for the presidency, Àngels Chacón as minister of business and information, Laura Borràs as head of culture and heritage, and the three men on the team, Damià Calvet, Jordi Puigneró and Miquel Buch, as leaders of land and sustainability, of digital policy and public administration, and of the interior respectively.

This means he has hand-picked a cabinet with a 50-50 gender split and members who have no charges against them and are not under investigation over the disputed independence referendum held on October 1.

Torra has promised his new regional government will 'act responsibly', although there is some speculation as to whether the president-to-be's recapitulation is a tactic to get Catalunya back under regional control before rethinking the independence strategy.

He is now travelling to Brussels to meet with deposed ministers for culture and health, Lluís Puig and Antoni Comín, both of whom fled along with the then regional president Carles Puigdemont to Belgium in October to avoid arrest.

Before this, Torra travelled to Berlin to meet with Puigdemont, who is unable to leave the country after a European arrest warrant was resurrected five months after being cancelled.

Puigdemont had been living in Belgium after the first arrest warrant was annulled, knowing he was safe from being taken into custody anywhere in the world except Spain, but when he was driving home from a conference at Helsinki University, he was intercepted just south of the Danish border in the German region of Schleswig-Holstein.

He was then released after paying bail to the tune of €75,000 and is waiting to hear whether the regional court plans to extradite him to Spain.

After Berlin and before Brussels, Torra travelled to three different jails in the Greater Madrid region to talk with fellow Catalunya politicians currently held in custody.

Others in exile include Anna Gabriel of the CUP, in Switzerland, Meritxell Serret, in Brussels with Comín and Puig, and Clara Ponsatí who left Brussels for Edinburgh and returned to her old job of professor of economics at St Andrew's University.

An arrest warrant from Spain meant Dr Ponsatí has had to hand in her passport to Edinburgh police, but she has the overwhelming backing of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and a huge chunk of the Scottish population who are against he having to be extradited to face a possible 33-year jail term.