Catalan President favours election over independence

After initially being delayed by an hour, the speech was then completely called off at the last minute.

Reports say he hasn't received sufficient guarantees that calling elections would stop Madrid's plans to intervene in Catalan autonomy.

It was believed he would call a snap regional election for December, a move that could have helped break a one-month deadlock between the Madrid government and Catalan separatists seeking independence from Spain.

Just moments after the speech was canceled, Xavier García Albiol, president of the People's Party of Catalonia and against independence, tweeted: "Those who play with fire end up burnt" in an apparent dig at Pugdemont.

This afternoon thousands of Catalans took to the streets of Barcelona in protests against the Spanish central government triggering Article 155.

Puigdemont called an urgent brainstorming meeting with his cabinet and pro-independence allies on Wednesday night and further cracks appeared late on Thursday in the secessionist coalition as members backed a vote while others said there was no alternative to independence.

An opinion poll published by the El Periodico newspaper on Sunday showed a snap election would probably have results similar to the last ballot, in 2015, when a coalition of pro-independence parties formed a minority government.

The country was plunged into political turmoil after the October independence referendum in Catalonia which Madrid has branded 'illegal'.

It is Spain's worst political crisis since the end of the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco in 1975.

Catalonia's foreign affairs chief, Raul Romeva, suggested in an interview on Wednesday separatist leaders would consider dropping their demand for independence should the Spanish government offer a palatable way out.

Rajoy has sought to maintain political air cover for his hard line approach as the opposition Socialist Party balked at backing the Catalans into a corner. The Socialists floated the idea that a snap regional election in Catalonia would be enough to stop Article 155 from being implemented.

"The scenario of independence is one that we cannot allow and which will not happen," Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told Spanish radio on Thursday. He said there was already a "significant slowdown" in economic activity in the region.

"They're caught in a mousetrap. It seems their own decisions are producing vertigo."

The question is how it plays on the streets. Elections might not be enough to appease the 2 million or so supporters the independence campaign claims to have.

The main activist group ratcheted up expectations of a dramatic statement on Friday.

The Catalan National Assembly has called its members to surround the regional parliament from noon, a human shield against Rajoy's authorities.

"Now we have to defend the republic," the group's leadership said in a text message to its members.