When spiders weave folded, they can immobilize a lion”. This is how Arnaldo Otegien expressed himself at a meeting of the Catalan electoral campaign in February 2021 together with Oriol Junqueras and Pere Aragonès. The process still exerted an intense attraction on the Abertzale left. Otegi confessed this at that event: “What the people of Catalonia have done in recent years is something completely extraordinary, it is colossal, it is the democratic revolution of the 21st century. You have shown that it can be done and this has been a great lesson for the Basques.” It seems that this fascination, three years later, has faded.
Then, Junqueras participated in the rally thanks to one of the permits he already had while in prison. The pardons would arrive four months later. ERC is doing very well with Otegi’s support to reaffirm its pro-independence radicalism. In addition, Junts – always in the shadow of Carles Puigdemont – then insisted on reactivating the unilateral declaration of independence. The irritation that this song provoked in Junqueras was obvious: “We don’t want to declare independence 2,000 times and for it to last a few moments”, he told RAC1. All this was in the previous election campaign. Now that the next one is approaching, EH Bildu no longer proclaims its admiration for the process, while Aragonès and Puigdemont subscribe to the path of a generous reading of article 92 of the Constitution to hold a referendum.
In Catalonia, Junts and ERC still compete for the pro-independence pedigree, but less and less. On the other hand, in Euskadi the campaign does not follow these paths at all. What the sovereignist parties offer the Basques is the promise of better management of a self-government that, for the time being, they propose to expand and consolidate. It is true that Euskadi has a crucial advantage over Catalonia, because it has the economic concert, which gives it control over its tax revenues.
It is not that the pro-independence aspirations of the liberal left have disappeared, but the outcome of the Catalan process is one of the factors that has led them to reorient their strategy. Nor has the PNB again flirted with clashing with the State since the experience of the plan.
The Penabists have designed a different way. His sketch went more or less unnoticed during the negotiation of Pedro Sánchez’s investiture, but it is of great relevance. The Basque Statute is the only one that has not been updated since 1979. During much of the mandate of Íñigo Urkullu, the PNB entered a reform process, but it soon became an uncomfortable issue. Impossible to reach a point of consensus broad enough to avoid new divisions in Basque society. The eventual inclusion of the “right to decide” brought the work to a standstill. The path that the PNB intends to explore now is, in principle, more pragmatic and hopes that EH Bildu and the PSE will be part of the agreement.
That is? In the pact by which Sánchez was invested, in addition to listing the powers that must still be deployed in two years in accordance with the current Guernica Statute, it is established that the PNB and the PSOE will negotiate a ” new phase” of updating the Basque self-government within a period not exceeding a year and a half from the constitution of the new government that emerges from the elections on the 21st. This phase will consist of the “national recognition” of Euskadi and the “safeguard of Basque competences” through a “system of guarantees that starts from bilaterality and legality”. This new self-government will have to be agreed in the Basque Parliament, in the Courts and ratified in a referendum, like any regional statute.
The PNB considers that the time is right for the leap to Basque autonomy to take place now with a broad consensus. In reality, between the PNB and EH Bildu they could get the two-thirds of the Chamber of Vitoria needed to approve it, but it is a question of establishing it on more robust foundations and of having enough support in Madrid and, for that , the socialists are a fundamental piece. At the moment, due to the contacts that the Penabists have maintained with EH Bildu, this formation is also prepared to negotiate. For now, the Abertzale left considers it necessary for Sánchez to remain in Moncloa, while the whole process of bringing ETA prisoners to Basque prisons is developed.
This favorable period for the negotiation that could open after the elections on the 21st would be benefited, in principle, by the few dates with the polls scheduled on the horizon after the summer. But politics is always subject to unforeseen circumstances. The election result itself could alter the plans. Likewise, the internal composition of EH Bildu is subject to difficult balances that could change if its goal of governing is frustrated.
Given the lesson of the Ibarretxe plan first and the Catalan process later, the PNB is not prepared to pay for any way that gets out of hand, which implies not being carried away by rivalry in the sovereignist field, which is always difficult to control Meanwhile, Junts and ERC, each with different accents and always at odds, have entered a phase of claiming an agreed referendum while demanding a fiscal pact in the Basque Country. In this case, the possibility of broad consensus in Catalonia is very remote.
