The list of commitments that the PNV will demand from Pedro Sánchez in exchange for his support for the investiture is not yet fully known, although the Jeltzales already offer some clues as to what their demands will be. The president of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar, warned this Tuesday that if there is not “exhaustive compliance” with the pending transfers of the Gernika Statute, as agreed by the central and Basque governments in 2019, his party will not support the investment.
This commitment was already included among the 12 points of the PNV-PSOE investiture pact last term, although it was not fulfilled and the Basque Statute of Autonomy remains unfulfilled four decades after its approval.
Now, in the midst of negotiating a new investiture, the Jeltzales rescue, as expected, this historic vindication. “Without that there is no yes from the PNV,” said Ortuzar in an interview on TVE, in which he recalled that in the previous legislature “Sanchez himself recognized and scheduled” the pending transfers, but “things have remained in the water of borage” after the arrival of the pandemic and also due to “a certain indolence” of the state Executive.
“That cannot happen again, we must activate the transfer of powers,” reiterated the leader of the PNV, who has demanded “more certainty and guarantees than three years ago” because in the last legislature the relationship with the PSOE has had ” more shadows than lights” and now the objective is to “dissipate the shadows.
Ortuzar has hoped that this will be possible because “in politics, necessity is the best driving force for political will and now President Sánchez needs the votes of the PNV.”
Another condition of the Basque nationalists to support Sánchez’s investiture is to take “a leap to a new status of self-government” because Euskadi now is not the same as in 1978, when the current Statute was negotiated, and it is necessary to “update” the self-government .
In relation to the amnesty for the Catalan leaders of the process, he regretted that this issue is addressed with a “mercantilist version of votes for amnesty” since the resolution of the Catalan conflict is “vital beyond the investiture” because “Catalonia needs to heal wounds and this is a very important measure” for this.
Ortuzar has also referred to the words of the acting Minister of Social Rights and leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, about Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, and has called on “to be more careful in the use of language and words.” .
“We cannot be equidistant,” said Ortuzar, who was “dismayed” by the scenes of pain experienced on both sides of the conflict. The Jeltzale leader has demanded more involvement from the European Union in this matter and has called for a “diplomatic effort” to bring peace to that region.
