We are now pausing our live coverage following Thursday's election in Catalonia.

A pro-Spanish unity party has won the most seats but separatist parties will together be able to form a majority in parliament.

The results are a setback for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy who had imposed direct rule over the region after its illegal independence declaration.

For the latest updates see our main news story.

In an opinion piece, the Spanish daily El Pais says the regional elections have failed to create clarity in Catalonia's "exhausted and fractured" society.

It says, however, that in the popular vote the separatists have failed to achieve a clear majority - the three main independence parties have about 48% of the total vote.

It calls on politicians to avoid the path of social conflict, adding: "Instead, the winners should do something as simple as that for which every politician is elected - to govern, from the institutions and within the law."

The European Commission says that its stance towards Catalonia remains the same.

The executive arm of the EU has previously stated that events in Catalonia are an internal issue for Spain.

"Our position on the question of Catalonia is well known and has been regularly restated, at all levels. It will not change," commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein told AFP news agency.

"In relation to a regional election, we have no comment to make," he added.

In an interview with the Catalan broadcaster TV3, the leader of the liberal unionist Citizens party, Inés Arrimadas has said that, despite the fact that the separatist parties appear to have won a absolute majority, her party "would wait and see who wants to form a coalition in the coming weeks".

Carles Puigdemont, the sacked president of the Spanish region of Catalonia has said that tonight's result "shows that the Catalan people have won the right to be listened to".

Carles Puigdemont told a news conference in Brussels that the Catalan regional election was a victory for separatist parties "which no-one can dispute".

Inés Arrimadas, leader of the Citizens party in Catalonia, has made a triumphant speech in the Placa d'Espanya in Barcelona despite the unionists' overall failure to win a majority in parliament.

"For the first time, a unionist party has won an election to the Catalan parliament," she said after Citizens won the largest share of seats.

Carles Puigdemont is continuing his speech in Brussels.

He says that "(Prime Minister) Rajoy's method has failed to stop the independence movement".

"Despite the difficulties we have faced, the absolute majority of independence continues, he said."

Ousted Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, speaking in Belgium, says that the "Catalan republic has won" Thursday's election.

Alfred Bosch, an ERC leader in Barcelona, said his party wanted nothing less than independence.

"Our goal is a Catalan republic," he told BBC World Service's Newshour programme.

"We want to do it democratically with all the people voting and being able to participate in that and the response of the Spanish government is violence, police violence, putting people in jail for political motives, so we're not very happy at that. Despite all this, we accepted these elections, not because we accept who called them and how they called them, but because we accept the citizens and we accept their verdict."

In the last few minutes, the leaders of the Popular Party, the Socialists, and In Common We Can have accepted that the separatist parties won a majority in the election.

Image source, Reuters

The unionists may have lost but their leading party, Citizens, is projected to have won more than a million votes.

Image source, Reuters

Separatists are celebrating in Barcelona tonight, proudly waving the lone-star flag of independence.

The leader of the Popular Party in Catalonia, Xavier Garcia Albiol, has conceded his party will "mostly likely be in opposition".

In a press conference in Barcelona, he said "it was a bad day for the party" and that he was "not proud of the party's results".

One of the key grassroots groups in the independence drive has been the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), whose leader Jordi Sànchez is in prison on remand.

Deputy leader Agustí Alcoberro said the ANC demanded the restoration of Catalonia's sacked government led by Carles Puigdemont "immediately".

Mr Puigdemont is in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

It's a very good result for the separatists, Jordi Sole, an MEP for Catalonia's ERC party, told BBC World Service's Newshour programme.

"It seems that pro-independence parties have big chances to keep the absolute majority of seats in the Catalan parliament, in the new parliament which in the face of repression, in the face of having candidates in jail and in exile, after all we have been through these last weeks it seems to us a very, very good result," he said.

Image source, Reuters

The sacked Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemiont (centre), has been savouring the results with his allies in the Belgian capital.

They are wearing yellow ribbons in solidarity with the other Catalans in prison in Spain for their part in the independence drive.