Some summarized background information on the Basque Country

international | miscellaneous | other press Thursday February 24, 2005 16:19 by xare

This is not meant to be an opinion article but an answer to a request of information.

In this article I speak about the parliamentary situation on the Basque Autonomous Parliament and the autonomous movement. in the Basque Country.

This article does not include the Navarrian situation neither the one of the basques in the French State.

Basque Tripartite:
As for the basque (spanish also) electoral system, the members of parliament are chosen proportionally. So the government can only have majority with the half plus one seats in parliament. No one party in the BC reaches this situation.
75 seats in parliament get the following distribution.
PNV(Basque Nationalist Party- Moderate Nationalist, right wing): 26 seats
PP (Spanish Right Wing): 18 seats
PSOE(Spanish Social Democrat): 13 seats
EA(Eusko Alkartasuna, Moderate Nationalist, center right): 7 seats
EH(Euskal Herritarrok, Radical pro independence party, left wing): 7 seats
EB(Ezker Batua, Spanish United Left): 3 seats
UA(Unidad Alavesa, provincial party defending the interests of the southern province of Alava, close to PP right wing):1 seats

The only possible combination to create a government at the moment has been made combining the forces between PNV, EA and EB. EA is just a faction of the PNV which separated 15 years ago, when PNV replaced former president of the comunity Carlos Garaikoetxea by José Antonio Ardanza. An internal war between PNV people resulted into a split and the appearing of EA. Now there is a tendency to go together in elections as a coalition.

PNV-EA-EB gather together 36 seats. They are not half-1 seats, but they are the only combination that got the biggest ammount of seats and ready to work together. The 3 party government needs to gather votes from the other parties in order to obtain the needed 38 votes for passing laws and the general year budget.

So everyday in government is very tense and conflictive.

OK this is parliamentary politics.

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There is something we could call an autonomous movement in the basque Country. It has Three axes of work:
-Gaztetxeak - Squatted or obtained social centers
-Irrati libreak - Free radios
-Grass root Movements: Activists against the itoiz damn, activists against High Speed Train, Anti military activism, Hemen eta Munduan (antiglobalisation...) and several other groups, feminists etc.....

The social centers activities and situation depend on the relationship with the local institutions. In Iruña the occupiers of the Euskal Jai Gaztetxea, where brutally evicted by the police, they were squatting the oldest basque ball playing court and it was about to become 100 years old, which would convert it into humanity trust and therefore not possible to destroy. The ultra catholic UPN navarrese party destroyed it this summer with heavy violence putting at risks the life of the persons who where peacefully resisting inside.

The gaztetxea was a huge gathering point, in the summer nearly 200 young were there every day doing different activities.

Other gaztetxeak risk eviction in the Bilbao area, but evictions are costly as there is strong popular support.

Real basques? I do not really know if this is definable. I guess a visit should be appropriate. We all live an average western way of life. The conflict drawns a lot of activist work, but there is a frame of work for other things than just basque country.

There is also a very interesting movement for the recovery of the language. This movement took to the streets when a Spanish judge (Juan Del olmo) closed "egunkaria" the only basque language newspaper we had.