Catalan nationalists are threatening to withdraw their support from Spain's minority government if relations with the ruling party do not improve.

A spokesman for the Catalan regional party Convergance and Union Joaquim Molins was quoted as saying that if problems between the two parties continued, a rupture would probably become inevitable.

Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party, which came to power in March 1996, relies on the Catalans' 16 votes for a parliamentary majority.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service