The Catalan government is calling off a referendum on independence from Spain planned for 9 November amid fierce opposition from Madrid.

Spain’s constitutional court decided unanimously in September to hear the central government’s case against the poll, which automatically suspended the referendum until it hears arguments and makes a decision – a process that could take years.

The regional government of Catalonia had vowed to press ahead with the vote but during a meeting of pro-referendum parties on Monday it backed off.

“The government has determined that the consultation [referendum] can’t take place,” Joan Herrera, a lawmaker with the tiny leftist Initiative for Catalonia party, said after the talks.

Catalonia’s nationalist government, led by Artur Mas, would announce an alternative proposal on Tuesday, he said. Mas is scheduled to give a press conference on Tuesday morning.

Mas had previously promised to respect the law in his drive for a non-binding vote on whether the wealthy north-eastern region should break away.

He has hinted that if the central government blocked the independence vote he could call an early regional election that would act as a plebiscite.

Mas has faced an undertow of fierce separatist yearning in the street and among his political allies. Members of the leftwing Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which props up Mas’s conservative CiU coalition in the regional assembly, have pressured him to defy the court order.

In a statement after the news broke that the government had decided to call off the referendum, the ERC said: “There is only one path: that parliament make an immediate declaration of independence.”

Polls suggest the ERC could make big gains if Mas were to call early elections, leaving Madrid facing a Catalan government more fiercely set on independence.

With an economy roughly the size of Portugal’s, Catalonia and its 7.5 million inhabitants – 16% of the Spanish population – have long been an engine for the country as a whole.

The region has its own widely spoken language that was repressed during the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco and a proudly distinctive culture.

The 1992 Summer Olympics, in part financed by the national government, helped transform the Catalan capital, Barcelona, into one of Europe’s most visited cities.

But a growing number of Catalans resent the redistribution of their taxes to other parts of Spain and believe the region would be better off on its own.

The 2008 real estate crash, which triggered a five-year economic downturn across Spain, and a 2010 decision by Spain’s constitutional court to water down a 2006 statute giving the region more powers have added to the growing pressure for secession.

Catalans were fired up by the September independence referendum in Scotland even though voters there rejected a separation from Britain.

Hundreds of thousands of people formed a giant “V” for “vote” in downtown Barcelona on 11 September, Catalonia’s national day, to push for the right to hold the referendum

The Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a powerful civil pro-independence group, which organised the protest, had already started a campaign of door-to-door canvassing for the referendum.

But a 5 October poll showed only 23% of Catalans supported the idea of forging ahead with the referendum and 45% wanted the regional authorities to comply with the stay ordered by the constitutional court.

Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has called for dialogue with Catalans to resolve the impasse.

“Law and dialogue, this is the way out of this situation,” he said at a campaign event for his conservative People’s party on Saturday in Guadalajara just north of the Spanish capital.