The PNV candidate for lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, has criticized the fact that the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, “slipped” that the Basque concert was “unsupportive”, something that, in the opinion of the jeltzales, would have indirectly let down the when presenting your financing proposal for Catalonia. The head of the list of Basque nationalists has asked for “respect” for the Basque tax regime, while pointing out that it is “a system of solidarity” because Euskadi contributes to the State “much more” than the weight of its GDP and its population. The statements come in the middle of the pre-campaign, one month before the elections, at a time when the Jeltzales seek to activate their electorate against EH Bildu and increase electoral tension.
Imanol Pradales referred to this issue in the morning, in an interview on Antena 3, and in the afternoon he called the media to express his position on the matter. “We do not admit that it is suggested that we are unsupportive because we contribute much beyond our population weight: we are more or less 4.6% in the State as a population and we contribute 6.24% to the general burdens of the State and we are approximately 5.9% of the GDP and we contribute 6.24%,” he indicated in statements to the media in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
The PNV candidate has also pointed out that Euskadi participates by “putting money” into the Interterritorial Compensation Fund, from which “it does not receive anything” and has recalled that “the Basque Economic Agreement is a singularity that is legally protected by both the Statute of Gernika as by the Spanish Constitution”.
Pradales has completed his argument by adding that the Basque economic agreement is a “singular” system of “unilateral risk” financing, which implies that “no one comes to rescue us and that the State does not come to provide money if things go badly for us.” .
His intervention in the afternoon has practically copied what was expressed in the morning, in the Espejo Público program, where, however, he has qualified his “respect” for Aragonès’ proposal, which he sees as “legitimate”, but denouncing that it “gives understand” that the Basque concert is “unsupportive”. “It seems that this financing model that he proposes would be supportive, perhaps implying that the Basque concert is not. That does worry me,” he indicated.
Imanol Pradales’ statements come one month before the Basque elections, at a time when electoral tension continues to increase. The Jeltzales, who according to the polls will maintain a tight fight with EH Bildu, are worried that their electorate may be demobilized and fear that, as in the last elections with the polls, there could be a high abstention. In fact, Andoni Ortuzar himself, president of the EBB of the PNV, acknowledged that they had received “a warning” from the electorate through “an abstention from punishment.”
According to the EiTB Focus survey in February, voting loyalty among those who voted for EH Bildu in 2020 is 23 points higher, 86% in the case of the Abertzale coalition compared to 63% for the Jeltzales, so that the priority For the PNV it is to activate the electorate, seeking to increase electoral tension and, at times, trying to find EH Bildu in hand-to-hand combat.
The allusion to the statements of Pere Aragonès, leader of a partner party of EH Bildu, is better understood in that context, since it was, in any case, a questioning of the passive economic agreement. The nationalist coalition, meanwhile, has avoided commenting on what the Catalan leader expressed for the moment.
