The government of Catalonia are planning to hold a referendum to become an independent state.
Set for October 1, the announcement is due to provoke political and legal clashes with Spain.
The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, proposed the question: “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?”
“It is time for Catalans to decide their future,” Puigdemont said.
This calls for a referendum have not been taken well by Spain. Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Spain’s deputy prime minister said: “They can announce a referendum as many times as they want and put it back as many weeks as they want, and hold as many events as they want, but the referendum is not going to take place.”
When he was asked how the government would respond to the referendum planned for October, a spokesman said: “I cannot tell you what will happen [in Catalonia]. But I can tell you what will not happen. There will not be an illegal referendum that goes against the constitution.”
Three years ago, Catalonia saw a symbolic referendum that saw 80 percent of participants opting for independence. However, only 2.3 million of Catalonia’s 5.4 million eligible voters took part.
The most recent poll by the Catalan CEO centre for opinion research have said that 49 percent of Catalans would vote no to an independent state. 44 percent would vote yes to independence.
A political scientist at the Autonomous University in Barcelona said: “Much depends on the reaction from Madrid. If the response is very hard then the independence bloc will be able to expand its support and perhaps move closer to a majority,”
“They will have a problem if they only get their supporters to take part in a referendum. That would mean around 2m people, and that is not a majority,” added Oriol Bartomeus.