Residents of the Spanish region of Catalonia are expected to hold a massive rally Thursday for independence from Spain, taking cue from an upcoming Scottish referendum on independence from the United Kingdom.
More than 450,000 people are expected to crowd the streets of the region's capital Barcelona in support of ending 300 years of Spanish rule, USA Today reported. The call for Catalonia's independence has long been simmering, with provincial officials pleading for the matter to be settled with a referendum.
"Catalans want to vote," Artur Mas, president of Catalonia, said Wednesday. "We want to vote in order to become the masters of our own future and be able to decide how to best respond to the needs of our fellow citizens.
"We are not moved by the desire to be better than others, but by the desire that we may become better ourselves."
Spain, however, maintains that no such vote will take place and that Catalonia can't handle the daunting task of establishing independence.
About 55 percent of Catalans, who have their own language, approve of independence, according to the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia, a Spanish-government supported group.
They have organized the Catalan Way 2014 demonstration with the hopes that Spain will finally approve a referendum. Over 1 million people showed up to similar rallies held last year.
"Scotland has been given the opportunity to choose what they want to be, and Spain needs to be inspired by this precedent," Albert Royo-Marine, secretary general of the PDC, told USA Today. "This is the way to solve political conflicts."
Yet other Catalan groups acknowledge that the region, which boasts a 7.5 million population, may not be able to sustain independence like Scotland.
Scotland and Catalonia are "two different realities," Susana Beltran, vice president of the anti-independence group Catalan Civil Society, told the Agence France-Press. "Catalonia is a region, not a nation like Scotland."
The formerly independent region has been a part of Spain since 1714, when the area gave in to a Spanish military siege that lasted a year.
