Recession-hit Spaniards will this week be told to swallow yet more austerity as the government prepares a fresh round of reforms and another budget filled with spending cuts and tax increases that will allow it to seek a bailout from eurozone partners.
Pension freezes are also expected to form part of a raft measures to prepare the way for the European Central Bank (ECB) to give Spain support to control borrowing costs that will eat up a large chunk of next year's budget.
The budget is to be announced on Thursday, alongside the reform programme. Neither seemed likely to contain measures to immediately ease Spain's chronic 25% unemployment, which some analysts expect will rise to 26.5% next year.
On Friday Spaniards will learn just how big the hole in their banks really is, with an official report expected to say these must find an extra €60bn to cover damage wreaked by toxic real estate loans.
The figure to be provided by consultancy Oliver Wyman, which will cover 14 banking groups that make up 90% of the sector, represents the maximum amount banks will have to ask for from the €100bn that the eurozone has already set aside to rescue Spanish banks.
Small investors who bought risky hybrid shares in banks will have to shoulder part of the €60bn losses. Some banks may also be able to raise capital without going to the eurozone rescue fund, further reducing the amount to be provided by the fund.
The Spanish finance minister, Luis de Guindos, confirmed over the weekend that Oliver Wyman was expected to produce a figure of around €60bn , though there were reports of last-minute tensions with Spanish authorities about exactly how to measure the banking hole.
It remained unclear, however, when the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, would make the expected request for a bailout. The reforms and budget are meant to cover most of the conditions that the eurozone might impose, making the bailout easier to negotiate and less politically damaging to Rajoy's government – which has claimed it might still be able to avoid the bailout altogether.
Rajoy's decision-making may be coloured by a looming constitutional crisis, as the Catalan parliament next week debates moves towards demanding greater sovereignty amid increasing rage in the north-eastern region over austerity measures and the way tax money is gathered and divided between Spain's 17 regional governments.
The prime minister's rejection last week of the tax reform proposals of the Catalan regional leader, Artur Mas, may see the latter's national Convergence and Union coalition ally with openly separatist parties to demand a right to self-determination that is not currently part of the Spanish constitution.
Mas is expected to call fresh regional elections before Christmas as Catalonia fights for a larger share of the shrinking Spanish tax pot and as Rajoy's government insists that all regions apply their own austerity measures.
A vote on the self-determination proposals would come on Thursday, making the question of the future independence of Spain's wealthiest region a key part of any future election campaign.
Juan Rosell, leader of Spain's employers federation and of its Catalan subsidiary, has called the issue "a huge problem" for Spain as it struggles to emerge from a double-dip recession that analysts predict will see the economy shrink by about 1.6% this year and in 2013.