and at times wet and windy. as cool and at times wet and windy. as we move into the weekend there is that north—south divide. this is bbc news with special coverage as catalan leaders decide whether to declare independence. this is the man who will decide if they impose direct rule if they split. i'm outside the parliament where rumours might say the delay is about an international... hello and welcome to this special coverage from bbc news. it is make your mind up time. catalan leaders are meeting right now about whether

to declare independence from spain. the statement was due an hour ago but was delayed at the last minute. there is heavy security around the regional parliament and large crowd had gathered right across barcelona at dc if the president goes ahead with his promise. he says he has a mandate after last weeks unofficial referendum. spain say this is a rebellion against the rule of law. the stakes could not be any higher. let's look at the pictures around barcelona, huge crowd had gathered and are watching on big screens the events and are watching on big screens the eve nts fro m and are watching on big screens the events from inside the catalan parliament. an hour or so ago they we re parliament. an hour or so ago they were watching as suddenly all those mps left the chamber is there was a delay announced. now we expect that statement any moment now. let's go back to tim in barcelona, is it any clearer why we had that delay? there area clearer why we had that delay? there are a lot of rumours flying around

as you can imagine. the chamber is still not even half full, it takes 135 members, but as you can see there are people coming in now. one of the rumours is that there is talk of the rumours is that there is talk ofan of the rumours is that there is talk of an international mediating commission which carles puigdemont is prepared to engage with and one other rumour is that has upset the ha rd left other rumour is that has upset the hard left communist group which she relies on to keep his coalition in power. two of whom left the meeting about an hour ago when they were discussing what was going to happen here in the catalan parliament with the catalan president. as you can see, people are beginning to come back in. one other piece of news reported on a local website, and thatis reported on a local website, and that is national police, the state police, have reinforced airports, train stations, borders and nuclear power stations as well. really, it

is unclear about what could happen in the next few minutes. with the hardline group and the coalition, it means that carles puigdemont does have a majority here, and according to catalan law, as decided by this parliament, but of course not agreed with by madrid, the referendum, with its 90% agreement for secession for independence, would be put to the parliament and passed. as we know from madrid, in the last few hours, mariano rajoy‘s to deputy prime minister has already addressed the senate and make clear that the rule of law will be enforced. it is non—negotiable. quite where we are, matthew, in terms of any imminent

announcement i am not sure. but if you quickly look back in the chamber, or the press and stills photographer holding their cameras up, it looks as if carles puigdemont is about to arrive, or certainly some significant members. we will keep you posted, but it is chaotic at the moment. thank you, we will come back to you in a moment. but i wa nt come back to you in a moment. but i want to stay with the shots from inside the parliament, because you see more and more of the people coming in, it is pretty full now, you can see the various members of the press straining to get their shots. this was more or less what it looks like about an hour and go when suddenly the whole chamber dispersed. there he is, the catalan president entering the chamber. just having a look around these absolutely critical moments. he will know in his mind what has been decided and what he will say, but we

wait to hear, we wait to hear if it is that declaration of independence, 01’ is that declaration of independence, or whether he knew once is the position. finds a form of words that allows him to navigate forward given what madrid has said and the threats that have come. —— nuances. insisting that they would not allow independence to go ahead. he settled himself in, and as we watch these pictures i will bring in an america is professor of contemporary spanish studies at the london school of economics, —— emeritus. how significant a moment you think this is? it is very difficult to guess how significant it is. it could give rise to some sort of compromise, some sort of fudge. but even that

will have enormous significant in that the government will not remain in place it is not going to make an immediate declaration of independence because it will lose its coalition partner. if a declaration is made, then we will expect a reaction from madrid very quickly. madrid will have two — three days to consult the senate... he looks calm, but he is between a rock and a hard place, is indeed? absolutely, he has the skirt this very difficult part between keeping his partners happy and not provoking madrid. what we have heard in the last few days, a very, very tough line from madrid. it makes it very difficult, i spoke about nuances and

laying out a framework, but if madrid is saying no to independence and noted talks, it leaves very little room for manoeuvre, doesn't it? indeed. madrid had only said they are willing to negotiate if it isa they are willing to negotiate if it is a question of autonomy of alteration phehlukwayo altering the autonomy they enjoy. otherwise it is the rule of law, the position taken my budget has been a legal one backed by the law of force in order, and not a political one to discuss alternatives of one sort or the other. at least to negotiate. is his position more difficult in terms of what we've heard from various eu sources and leaders over the last few days, absolutely backing madrid's position. yes, that is the big problem. it is a problem also about mediation. because there is very little interest in europe in any form of mediation, because many

european leaders, including the eu, have said this is an internal affair. one of the reasons they are not interested is because they are concerned about substate nationalism in europe as a whole. we're talking about corsica, scotland. there is very little interest about encouraging secession in europe. stay with this. we note you are going to take us through about what the words the catalan president use. but the scene is absolutely set up for this announcement. i quickly wa nt to ta ke for this announcement. i quickly want to take you outside, it is not just all eyes on the catalan president. all eyes on the big screens as well, because huge crowds are in different parts of barcelona watching those events piped out of the catalan president. these are

cata la n the catalan president. these are catalan supporters, but i'm told that there are other demonstrations elsewhere in the city which are pro—unity, because over the last few days we have also seen big demonstrations from people wanting to know who split from madrid as we return to those pictures inside the chamber. —— no split. andrew, let me quickly bring you in, that is another huge dynamic in all of this. if there is any declaration of independence, we have already seen a number of fans saying they would leave the region and health to —— head to madrid and elsewhere. this is the tickly importance of the banks. they need to ensure that their investors and financial markets and their depositors, come what may they will have a presence in spain and inside the euro zone. for the banks it is especially important that they have access to

euro funding through the european central bank and through the bank of spain. if they were headquartered and legally incorporated in a country that was suddenly no longer in the eu, they would lose that access. i think in practice many of the financial markets, they don't really think this is going to happen. there has been some impact on the spanish stock market, and borrowing costs, but it has not been all that large. for businesses, for those that have taken these moves, it is like buying an insurance policy, that you can tell the people that you are dealing with that we will come through this with a spanish identity whatever happens. we wait to hear what is actually announced, but if it was to be that declaration of independence, economically, can that region, catalonia, survived? economically, can that region, catalonia, survived ? what economically, can that region, catalonia, survived? what did the figures actually look like? clearly

it can. it is broadly a similar size to the fenland economy. it accounts for a little under 20% of the spanish economy. if you look at it in per capita terms it is one of the richest regions in spain. not number one but close. it has an advanced structure. the difficult would be dealing with a status that it might have outside the eu, facing new barriers to its exports and the question of what currency use if you are no longerformally question of what currency use if you are no longer formally in the eurozone. there are states that are outside the eurozone data using the euro, montenegro and kosovo for example but it is not a comfortable position. proceedings are just getting underway so let's go right inside the catalan parliament and hear what they are saying. translation: unfortunately the person that got injured on the 20th

of march has died because of abuse. also because of abuse there have been other victims. the women's institute has announced that the number of victims is rising and it is now seven. i condemn these crimes andi is now seven. i condemn these crimes and i want to give my commiserations to families. the parliament is committed to the fight against any sort of violence against women. the order of the day today is the speech by the president to inform about the current political situation.

according to article 169, the president requested to be here in order to inform about the current political situation. he is carles puigdemont. translation: good afternoon. president, vice president, mps, everyone. i am here today as i requested myself to analyse the political situation. after the

referendum results from the 1st of october and to explain to you the consequences of all that. it has become obvious that it is not an internal issue any longer. catalonia is now a european matter. today i am not planning any threat,

any insults, this is a very serious situation and we are all responsible, we all need to take our own responsibilities so that we can de—escalated the tension in order not to feed this tension any longer. i want to address the population, eve ryo ne i want to address the population, everyone who has mobilised, especially on the first and the 3rd of october. also on saturday asking for dialogue, also on sunday, massively, in defence of a united spain. and also to those who haven't been out in the streets. all with all our differences, with agreements and disagreements, we are all the same part of the same community and we need to go forward together. what

ever happens. because this is how it works. we'll never agree on everything, obviously, but we have proved many times that the only way to go forward is democracy and peace, and that means to respect people who think differently and try and find a way to go forward with a common point. that requires dialogue. as you can imagine, these last few days has had many people suggesting to me what i should do and what i shouldn't do. all of them are legitimate and we must respect all of them. i've always thanked eve ryo ne all of them. i've always thanked everyone because everyone has their

own reasons and it's good to listen to everyone. i've also asked for opinion, asked many people for opinion, and they've helped me design the future and the present moment to understand that. what i'm going to propose is not a personal decision, or my own obsession. this is the result of the will of this government that i reside, and this commitment to celebrate the referendum and it also comes from the assessment we've done of these results. we are here because on the 1st of october catalonia had an independence referendum. in very

difficult conditions, extreme conditions, it is the first time in european democracy that election day ta kes pla ce european democracy that election day takes place amongst attacks from police, police attacking people simply queueing up to cast their vote. the police actions had as a result that many people needed assistance, medical assistance. everyone saw the horrible images. the objective wasn't just to take ballot wasn'tjust to take ballot boxes, the objective was to create panic, fear and to make people stay at home. but it went wrong, they did not achieve that objective because

more than 2 million people fought against that fear, went out and went to vote. we don't know how many people tried to vote and couldn't, but we do know that there were 770,000 people votes that couldn't be counted. over 2 million people could vote because they could fight against that fear and they found ballot boxes, they found the papers and they found everything operational in order to vote. in the previous weeks the research of ballot boxes that went on, didn't prevent the referendum from happening. any attempt to jeopardise

it systems, kenya occasions, nothing was able to stop the referendum. —— communications. when citizens went to vote they found everything they needed and everything organised in order to vote. so i want to really thank everyone who made this possible, logistically. people sleeping at the schools, people printing out papers to vote from home, it technicians who had to work to make things possible. workers from the government, voters who voted yes, those who voted no, those

who voted blank, everyone made this possible. applause especially i want to thank, sorry not to thank, but i want to send my affection to all those people who got injured, we will never forget that in those images. we need to condemn the actions of the spanish government. as the catalan president, i am very aware that many people are worried currently, and they are even scared about what could happen. people from all points

of views, different ideologies, violence, we've also had some economic decisions this week. companies going away. what really has an effect on our economy is the 16,000 million euros that every year we need to change social borders. undoubtably all of these are facts that have made the atmosphere quite tense lately. i want to say all these people, let's be calm, let's keep serenity. we are not going to

destabilise things, we defence dialogue, tolerance and we are always willing to talk. we represent the 7.5 million people in the country, all of them. i want to explain now where we are and why we are here. many people are watching is from outside today, all over the world, and i think we should explain ourselves. since the death of the dictator franco, catalonia has contributed massively to the consolidation of democracy. it hasn't been just an economic engine, but it has been a source of stability, economic stability. catalonia thought that the

constitution approved in 1978 could bea constitution approved in 1978 could be a good starting point for democracy, and catalonia really got involved in that. after a0 years of isolation and dictatorship. with the yea rs we isolation and dictatorship. with the years we realised that the frame that came out from the transition period was... we realised that the spanish authorities were seeing this as the final target, whereas for us it was a transition. in 2005, 85% of this parliament, i repeat 85%, a big

majority of this parliament, following these procedures that the constitution established, approved a new statute, a new autonomy frame for catalonia. and that triggered a massive anti—catalan campaign by the people who then wanted to dominate and governed spain at any price. it was approved later, ratified by the citizens in a referendum with a a7% of people voting. there were 1a5,000 votes less than

we had in this last referendum in favour of yes for independence. the constitutional court issued a sentence against this new statute in 2005. despite the fact that we followed all the procedures that the constitution dictates, despite having 85% of the parliament behind behind us, and despite this statute

being approved by citizens in a referendum. spain did not approve of it. and modify the text which was ended up very different. this is a humiliation, but this is not all. since then, since that sentence by the constitutional court, the spanish government has behaved in a very aggressive way in order to read centralised powers —— read

centralised, it has been a constant issuing of sentences in order to ta ke issuing of sentences in order to take away powers, against our culture, it's been against our culture, it's been against our culture and language and institutions. i am culture and language and institutions. iam now culture and language and institutions. i am now trying to summarise all of this briefly, but this is had a really big impact in cata la n this is had a really big impact in catalan society. millions of citizens, in a rational way, they have realised that the only way forward in order that we can keep our values and our character is that catalonia establishes itself separately. there is something more

important. as well as a majority of mps in the parliament in favour of independence, we thought that it was citizens that had to speak as well, and they had to do that through a referendum. 82% of catalans agreed with that. with the objective of celebrating this referendum in the last few years, institutions and society have been pushing different activities and initiatives. we've been asking to have an agreed

referendum like it happened in scotland. a referendum where both sides could campaign, and both sides committed themselves to accept the result and apply this result and negotiations in the interest of everyone. if the united kingdom could do that, one of the most solemn democracies in the world, why could we not. all our initiatives to achieve that have met very strong opposition. persecution by police, by courts access. “— persecution by police, by courts access. —— exaggerate. many of our