While we wait for the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) to reach an agreement on this year's Generalitat budget - it seems that little or no progress was made in this Saturday's meeting between Aragonès and Illa in Arenys de Mar, and if we accept the two press releases, things remain without agreement - the news of this week will be the summit that the Spanish PM and French president and their respective governments will hold on Thursday at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), on Montjuïc mountain. The political use made by the Spanish government, with its derision of the independence movement and desire to show off the trophy of a supposed political normalization in Catalonia - reflected in the arrogant approach of Sánchez and some of his ministers - has resulted in a protest rally being called for the summit.
The Barcelona summit is politically dangerous for Sánchez. It could tarnish the international aura with which he moves and reveal the Catalan reality. An independence movement that is fragmented and in continuous dispute, but prepared to take up all the slack again when it is presented as defeated. But the MNAC meeting is also risky for independentism, which is staking its credit on a protest mobilization that, although unitary, has obstacles that are difficult to solve. A demonstration called early on a January morning that may be the coldest day of winter, with the difficulties typical of a weekday and the distant location where it is to be held, under the Puig i Cadafalch columns.
In any case, both sides have a lot to lose - also to gain - because the significant presence of international media to follow the development of the meeting will serve as a mouthpiece for the political situation in Catalonia. Even more, after the amendments to the Penal Code, the abolition of the crime of sedition, the incorporation of a new crime of aggravated public disorder and the amendment of misappropriation of public funds. In this last crime, in addition, a close eye needs to be kept on the interpretation made by the Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena in his latest court resolution in which he avoids the intention of the legislators to reduce the years of imprisonment and returns the exiled Catalan politicians to the start line. Thus, the 12 years of imprisonment sought for president Puigdemont under the old Penal Code remain the same once the sentence has been reduced in Congress. The magic of Llarena.
Puigdemont himself has attacked the political sponsors of this reform - the PSOE, Unidas Podemos and ERC - after sources from the Spanish government said on Sunday that they were confident that the exiled president would be extradited before the end of the year to answer before Spanish justice and that this would enable them to win back support in the polls. ERC runs the risk of being trapped between the PSOE and Llarena, a scenario not at all advisable, as well as extremely slippery. For all this, the impact or the lack of it of Thursday's mobilization will be key, and everyone will have to draw their conclusions.