Ruth del Moral |
Madrid (EFE) new status for Euskadi and regrets that the central Executive has breached the investiture pact and has not wanted to “know anything” about giving more self-government.
“With a Euskadi finally at peace, we must reflect. The demands of the Basque Country and Catalonia are different from those of the rest of the State and we must respond in a different way and therefore a new status agreement must be reached”, stressed the spokesman for the PNV in Congress, Aitor Esteban, in an interview with EFE in which he said that it is an issue that “we will have to face in the next legislature or next legislatures.”
After stressing that the PNV is “absolutely disappointed” with compliance with the investiture pact in the area of self-government, Esteban recalled that the Basque Statute was the first to be approved and “has never been reformed”.
“For delaying it, we are not going to fix more,” he points out as a warning to sailors.
Esteban makes it clear that, although the pact to support the 2023 budgets has been fulfilled at 70%, there are twenty demands for greater self-government that the Executive committed to in exchange for their support. He cites greater legislative recognition of the feelings of belonging or being able to participate in the Basque treasury in the Ecofin forums.
For the PNV, the coalition government -and in this case it looks towards Podemos- has tried to solve social matters with state and “generalist” laws that have ignored the regional powers, which added to some sentences of the Constitutional Court has caused a change in the “Competence scaffolding of the State”.
“It is necessary to make a sincere reflection from Madrid that the autonomous system promised in the Constitution and in the statutes of autonomy has subsequently been transformed. Matters that were given exclusively have suddenly been occupied by the State ”, he stressed after insisting on a new status agreement “from the loyalty of the Basque party ”.
Feijóo, lack of autonomic sensitivity
After almost four years of legislature and work in Congress, he observes “lights and shadows” in his relationship with the Socialists, but he does not seem to feel uncomfortable either, especially because he does not see a PP with the will to “build counting on us”, nor to its new leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, with regional sensitivity.
“Until now I have not seen it, it is possible that it has it and that it still does not dare to make decisions, but today there is not much to hold on to,” he says after pointing out that relations with the PP “have never been broken”.
He insists that the PNV was not the first to distance itself from the former president of the PP Government Mariano Rajoy in the face of the motion of no confidence presented by Pedro Sánchez and recalls that Ciudadanos previously withdrew his support: “We were very loyal and clear and we did what we demanded Basque citizenship”.
Reissue of agreements?
What he does reiterate before the next general elections is that “it is impossible” for the PNV to come to support a government “if Vox is in the equation”: “If someone wants to base a majority on that, then they will not count on us ”.
The truth is that the will of the Basque nationalists is, at least in Euskadi, to be able to reissue pacts with the PSE, since the coalition “has worked reasonably well” and Esteban does not see a great electoral turnaround in the next elections for the Juntas Generals and in the main Basque capitals.
“Our will is that seeing that the panorama is quite stable it would seem logical to speak with the PSOE, especially if we want to work on an agreement for a possible government”, he has insisted again.
Faced with EH Bildu, his political rival in the Basque Country, Esteban criticizes that in Madrid they have a discourse that is not “with which he plays” in the Basque Parliament, which is “an absolute confrontation”.
“Here he lays the red carpet thinking that what he would like is to become the PNV,” he says.
In fact, he criticizes Bildu for displacing his claims for self-government when the Sánchez coalition government “raises the flag of progress.”
A flag that in some issues, such as the confrontation with the reform of the yes law, is considered “electoral”, because in his opinion consent is not in doubt and it is an “ideological fight” that can take its toll on the left.
“People don’t usually reward messes and disagreements,” he warns.
The investiture block before new laws
“I don’t see it as robust,” says Esteban, who shows concern because “some are seeking to exacerbate differences” and accentuate the profile when it is not the best time.
Despite this, he still sees it feasible that this block, made up of PNV, ERC, EH Bildu and other parties such as Más País and Compromís, can approve laws such as Housing or even the repeal of the Gag Law, which he does not give up.
He advances that at the moment the differences are “insignificant” and that there are new proposals on the table to further refine issues such as the authority of the State security forces and bodies. Remember that it cannot be ignored that the PP law has been reformed by more than 60%.
