The Grand Départ Pays Basque, the departure of the Tour from Bilbao and the contest of three stages in Basque territory, transcends sport. When it has been 12 years since the end of ETA’s violence, it is the great bet of the Basque institutions to project the new image of the Basque Country to the world. It is also an expressive bet of the possibleist political model that institutional Basque nationalism has bet on: it aims to transfer an image of the country and praises a modern and prosperous territory, while avoiding claims that could lead to a train crash. The arrival of the Tour generates a very wide acceptance, beyond acronyms, but coincides with a political and social moment of some agitation, with open fronts in key areas of Basque self-government.
The departure of the French round from the Basque Country cannot be compared with other sporting or cultural milestones that, in parallel, implement an urban and social transformation of cities. In this case, the Grand Départ serves rather as a showcase to show a previous example of political, social and urban transformation, while approaching the most important event of a sport that raises passions among a large part of Basque society.
The depth of this transformation is particularly evident if you look at the closest precedent, when in 1992 the Tour left from Sant Sebastià in the height of Miguel Indurain. ETA killed 26 people that year and riots were part of the Basque landscape. The unemployment rate stood at 22%, the result of the industrial crisis, and the area around the Bilbao estuary, one of the main focal points at the exit of the Grande Boucle, was the eloquent example of a country that fell to pieces
Agirre Lehendakaria Center is an innovation laboratory that has dedicated several investigations and two doctoral theses to studying the transformation of Euskadi, which obeys a particular model, according to its investigations. “It was possible thanks to a portfolio of interdependent initiatives. There are important economic measures, linked to industrial conversion, and self-government institutions are key to promoting them. In addition, social measures are promoted, which aim to mitigate the effects of unemployment, and social cohesion becomes a key factor, which is not usual in these processes. There is also a battery of measures of a cultural nature and, what is fundamental, a common cultural substrate, a shared vision of the country that allows there to be a strategic logic in these decisions”, explains Gorka Espiau, director of the center and author of ‘a doctoral thesis on the subject.
The arrival of the Tour shows some of the milestones of this transformation, with the Guggenheim as its emblem, as well as some of the most beautiful corners of the Basque geography. This event, in addition, aims to show off its organizational capacity and convey an image of a country, of a community with a level of coexistence that was unthinkable years ago. It even goes beyond the territory that strictly represents the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and, although it does not enter Navarre, in its third stage it crosses the Bidasoa to enter the French Basque Country.
The Basque institutions have disbursed more than 12 million euros to place Euskadi in this international showcase, but they promise that there will be a much greater return. The bet has not generated opposition from the main political parties, and the only posters opposed to the French round belong to a critical grouping with the official line of Sortu. The Gure Esku movement, in favor of the right to decide, has opted for a positive claim and has filled the roads with ikurriñes under the slogan “.
In any case, there is widespread criticism in political and social spheres that attributes complacency to the rectors of the main Basque institutions, managed by the PNB and the PSE. Basically, they accuse them of drawing a postcard Basque Country, forgetting urgent problems such as the high cost of housing, job insecurity or the deterioration of some pillars of the welfare state. Healthcare, the jewel of Basque self-government, is the second concern of citizens and, taking into account the local dimension, security emerges in Bilbao as the first social concern, while in San Sebastian, to mention another example, there is concern about the tourism of the city, which generates very problematic externalities, especially in terms of housing.
The Tour de France these days projects a modernized and attractive image of the Basque Country, especially valued by those who remember much grayer times. The clouds that have come out since the presentation of the race, however, show that the idyllic Euskadi is, logically, a fiction.
Is there a risk of drowning in sufficiency? According to Espiau, it will depend on the transformative capacity: “We are at a crossroads where we have much more to lose than three decades ago. Then, it was to transform or die as a society. The question is whether we are able to promote a new transformation or whether we have to wait for a new crisis to come to reinvent ourselves”.
