New Delhi: Catalonia will declare independence “in a matter of days”, the region’s secessionist leader Carles Puigdemont has told the BBC in an interview.
Puigdemont has said that his government would “act at the end of this week or the beginning of next.”
Voters overwhelmingly backed independence in the referendum on Sunday, which Spain has ruled illegal and which opponents of secession mostly boycotted.
However, the Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has called the vote valid and believes that it must be implemented.
In Barcelona, hundreds of students gathered in a central square to protest at Sunday’s police crackdown, chanting pro-independence slogans and waving Catalan flags.
Another protest was held later outside the headquarters of the Spanish National Police in Barcelona.
Mr Puigdemont said there was currently no contact between the government in Madrid and his devolved administration.
He disagreed with the European Commission’s statement on Monday that events in Catalonia were an internal issue for Spain.
In his televised address to the nation, the king said the Catalan leaders who organized the referendum showed their “disrespect to the powers of the state”.
“They have broken the democratic principles of the rule of law.
“Today, the Catalan society is fractured,” the king said, warning that the poll could put at risk the economy of the wealthy north-eastern region and the whole of Spain.
But he stressed that Spain “will overcome difficult times”.
Catalonia is one of Spain’s richest and most highly industrialized regions. Many Catalans blame much of Spain’s 2008 debt crisis on the central government and believe that the affluent region pays more to Madrid.
With a distinct history dating back to the early Middle Ages, Catalans see themselves as a separate nation from the rest of Spain. This feeling is largely fed by memories of the Franco dictatorship, which attempted to suppress Catalan identity.
