Catalonia will declare independence from Spain in a matter of days, the leader of the autonomous region has told the BBC.
In his first interview since Sunday's referendum, Carles Puigdemont said his government would "act at the end of this week or the beginning of next".
Meanwhile, Spain's King Felipe VI said organisers of the vote put themselves "outside the law".
He said the situation in Spain was "extremely serious", calling for unity.
Hundreds of thousands of people across Catalonia have been protesting over Spanish police violence during the vote, during which nearly 900 people were hurt.
If they do declare independence it could mean big problems for the Spanish economy and the European Union. Spain will be hurting if they are left with a mountain of debt and their most productive area of Spain(Catalonia) will be gone which would put pressure on the EU to bail them out just like they bailed out Greece. The only problem is Spain is much larger, they have about 1.2 trillion dollars in debt which is about three times larger than Greece's debt.
Also this would be a huge win for all the other regions in Europe that wan't to separate from their own country. I there's about one or two regions in Italy that want to separate and maybe the same in France. So this is going to be a big problem for the EU. I have a feeling Spain isn't just going to roll over and let the people of Catalonia get their independence. Let hope this remains peaceful but I doubt this will be over in just a matter of days I think the people of Catalonia are in for many more days of violent clashes with the government.
With that being said, I'm hoping they are successful with the overwhelming support the people have and the government backs down.
Debt to GDP has roughly tripled in the last 11 years.