Everyone knows that if there's one week marked on the calendar as being highly tense in Catalonia it's the one that begins this Monday. It's normal that Madrid should be concerned about the investiture of the acting Spanish prime minister but, sincerely, very few Catalans will, for one reason or another, be focusing on that news event given how packed the timetable is.
It's a bad week, minister Ábalos, to come to Barcelona playing the big shot, thinking that the best way to get votes in the Congress for Pedro Sánchez is to take your negotiating partner for a novice in these fights. There's no other interpretation possible of his words pressuring ERC to support Sánchez's investiture since, otherwise, it would show there's no chance for dialogue in the Catalan conflict. Ábalos must be unsure about something, since in a normal situation it's precisely the opposite: when there's agreement in the talks and this isn't a fantasy condemned to failure is when ERC will give them their votes. Not before. It seems very easy to understand, even for Ábalos.
Whilst Madrid adds to and takes away votes from the investiture, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday are, a priori, three days which will bring together headlines waited for for some time. This Monday, a court in Brussels has to give a verdict on judge Pablo Llarena's European Arrest Warrant against Carles Puigdemont. The president's lawyers will argue for a time out whilst waiting for another court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), to find on his immunity as an elected candidate to the European Parliament.
On this topic of immunity, the CJEU will issue its verdict on the immunity of Oriol Junqueras as an MEP on Thursday in Luxembourg. If the court agrees with the line sketched out by its advocate general Maciej Szpunar, Spain could have a serious upset and the shock wave could seat Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí in the European Parliament.
Between these two legal news stories, there's the Barça-Madrid Clásico this Wednesday, with a special prominence, announced weeks ago, by Tsunami Democràtic. In its bid to get the Spanish state to sit down to negotiate, it's called a demonstration at 4pm and guaranteed that it will make itself visible during the match on the field and in the stands and also by television. All of that in the middle of a continual drip of coaches which are announcing that they will travel to Barcelona following Tsunami Democràtic's slogans. The investiture will have to wait.