Catalonia's main separatist parties have agreed to re-elect fugitive Carles Puigdemont as president of the region later this month.
Mr Puigdemont, who has been in Brussels since he was sacked in October over an attempt to secede from Spain, faces immediate arrest if he returns home.
A spokesman for Mr Puigdemont's Together for Catalonia party said the separatist politician secured the backing of the left-republican ERC party in Brussels yesterday evening.
An ERC spokesman also confirmed the deal, adding that Mr Puigdemont will propose to speak via video conference to the regional parliament later this month or get a fellow party member to read the mandatory speech that candidates to the regional leadership need to deliver before voting.