And on Sunday the 21st, Basque elections with Athletic champion of the Cup, which, according to some political future experts, gives the PNV an advantage. Does not matter. Basque nationalism/sovereignty/independence knows it is the winner: ETA is no longer there, and the tax burden falls on Miss Pepis alongside those of the rest of the State. He has more powers than anyone else and, as Jordi Bosch says, in the next negotiation with the current government of Spain “he will pay them back.”
From Catalonia, basically, they ask for the same thing as the Basques, with some differences. The first is that the Basques, historically, have been scary in Madrid, and the Catalans, disgusting… decades ago, now and surely a few decades more. The second is that the Basque Country and Navarra have three million inhabitants and in Catalonia we are eight million with a GDP that represents 20% of all of Spain. An economic agreement for Catalonia would be a drama for the State.
In Catalonia we have always thought that to go to Ithaca we had to do a supply check in the port of Getaria. The Basques have been the mirror in which we have reflected ourselves and we have felt protected as if they were Zumosol’s cousin – let us not forget that Catalonia was where the nationalist left in the 1987 European elections found the most accomplices, 53,352 votes, even though it was where ETA He later committed his most bloodthirsty attacks.
What happens in Euskadi does not happen in Catalonia, this permanent inflammation of vaschitis. Some of us drooled over Lehendakari Ibarretxe’s proposal for the right to decide and were outraged at the closure of Egunkaria. We love the music of Itoiz (which Ernesto Valverde taught me for the first time many years ago, when he played for Espanyol, with the wonderful song Lai Teiatu) or the music of Kortatu or that of Rupert Ordorika and we liked reading Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga… But perhaps, when we have to build the future, we Catalans should look at our navel more. This is what the Basques have always done and frankly they have done much better.
On Sunday the 21st, whether the PNV or Bildu win, they have independence in the parking lot. At the moment the Basques walk everywhere. And they are doing well.
