Catalan Parl't To Vote On New Regional Pres. As Puigdemont Set For Return

The Catalan Parliament will on 8 August hold an investiture vote for Salvador Illa, from the pro-union centre-left Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), to be the next regional president. The PSC, the Catalan sister party of Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez' Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), leading the incoming gov't will be of significant relief to the gov't in Madrid.

• While the governing coalition will include the pro-independence Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), it is the PSC that sits as the largest party and will be a much louder voice in favour of Catalonia's continued status as an autonomous community within Spain than the outgoing Catalan President Pere Aragones from the ERC.
• The Illa administration will be the first Catalan gov't led by a pro-unity party since 2010. The apparent waning of support for Catalan independence would lower political risks in Spain for the foreseeable future.
• The scheduled vote comes as former Catalan president and current exile Carles Puigdemont said that he would return to Catalonia for Illa's inauguration. This is in spite of an existing arrest warrant against him. Euractiv: "Even with the approval of the controversial amnesty law, [...], the crime of embezzlement committed by members of Puigdemont’s former government – including himself – during the illegal independence referendum in October 2017, remains outside this ruling."
• Jordan Turull, general secretary of the populist pro-independence Junts (Together) led by Puigdemont, has said that if Puigdemont is arrested he will call for the investiture vote to be suspended.