The Catalan president, Quim Torra, has made a veiled comment on the investiture debate for Pedro Sánchez to return as prime minister of Spain​ and the hopes some have for how he will tackle the Catalan crisis. On Twitter, he posted a quote from Antoni Rovira i Virgili, former leader of ERC.

"'It's not about the politicians from Madrid governing us well. It's about them stopping governing us.' Antoni Rovira i Virgili, journalist, historian, speaker of the Parliament, died in exile in 1949."

“No es tracta que els polítics de Madrid ens governin bé. Es tracta que deixin de governar-nos." Antoni Rovira i Virgili, periodista, historiador, president del Parlament, mort a l’exili l’any 1949. — Quim Torra i Pla (@QuimTorraiPla) January 5, 2020

Rovira i Virgili was a noted intellectual of the Catalan nationalist movement during the Second Spanish Republic. He became speaker of the Catalan Parliament in exile during the 40s when Josep Irla became the president in exile following the execution of Lluís Companys by the Franco regime. In 1991, a university in Tarragona, Catalonia, was named after him; it's one of the best in Spain according to Times Higher Education's World University Rankings.

In 2013, Torra was behind a new, crowdfunded edition of Els darrers dies de la Catalunya republicana (literally, "The last days of the Republican Catalonia") by Rovira i Virgili through his publishing house Acontravent.