AKIPRESS.COM - Catalonia's regional assembly on Monday passed a resolution calling for secession from Spain, energizing a drive towards independence and deepening a standoff with central government in Madrid.

The declaration, which pro-independence parties in the northeastern region hope will lead to Catalonia seceding within 18 months, was backed by a majority in the regional parliament, Reuters reported.

Spain's center-right prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, said his government would seek to invalidate the motion with an appeal to the Constitutional Court in the coming days.

The fraught debate over Catalan secession has diverted campaigning for national elections on Dec. 20 away from a focus on Spain's uneven emergence from an economic crisis.

In September, parties favoring independence from Spain won a majority of seats in the Catalan assembly, after public support for the cause in one of Spain's wealthiest regions swelled during the recent recession.

"The Catalan parliament will adopt the necessary measures to start this democratic process of massive, sustained and peaceful disconnection from the Spanish state," read the resolution, published in Catalan.

But the Spanish constitution does not allow any region to break away and the Rajoy has repeatedly dismissed the Catalan campaign out of hand.

"I understand that many Spaniards have had a bellyful (...) of this continued attempt to delegitimize our institutions," he said in a televised address.

Members of his People's Party (PP) held up Spanish flags in the Catalan assembly after the resolution was passed, amid raucous applause from those who voted in favor.

The Catalan question is a long way from coming to a head, even as pro-independence parties say they will start setting up state-like institutions, including a social security office.

The declaration said it considered that judicial decisions, "in particular those of the Constitutional Court", were not legitimate, raising the prospect that regional politicians could disobey its rulings.