Catalonia's separatist leader Artur Mas said Tuesday he was reluctantly "ready" to call fresh parliamentary elections as a deadline for the Spanish region's secessionist faction to form a government approached dangerously close.

"I'm ready -- against my will, this is not what we wanted and it is not what I want -- but I'm ready to sign the decree to convene elections," he told reporters in Barcelona, after different groupings within the separatist faction that won September polls failed to agree on who should lead a new government.