The pact signed by the PNB and the PSOE on November 10 looks towards the legislature as a whole, although it also sets milestones that must be met in the first half of the mandate and some objectives that must be met in a matter of months. The agreement, in particular, states that three of the transfers of the Statute of Gernika, still pending, will have to arrive within three months, a commitment that acquires significance in the run-up to elections and to which the PNB gives absolute priority. The Jeltzales want to arrive at the polls with a satisfactory political background and are already putting pressure on the central government to achieve this.
The power to set the date of next spring’s elections rests with the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, who will decide it in common agreement with his party. The wounds that may have been left by the abrupt proposal of Imanol Pradales as a candidate for the PNB will not be a problem. Urkullu is a party man and, as much as he would have liked to continue one more term, he is already working for his training and in favor of the aspirations of his successor as head of the list.
The date, in any case, will be determined based on various circumstances. The first has to do with the electoral needs of the PNB, which must define the time it needs to make Pradales known beyond Bizkaia. The second circumstance is related to the baggage with which the PNB wants to arrive at the electoral date. Urkullu has sent Sabin Etxea a schedule with the milestones he expects for the coming months: laws he intends to approve, projects and initiatives of the Basque Government pending presentation or commitments of the Central Executive that could be fulfilled.
This is where the agreement signed for Sánchez’s investiture becomes important, a pact that includes, among other commitments, that of “culminating the present self-government – the Statute of Gernika – with the transfer to the Basque Country of the powers still pending in the non-extendable period of two years”. Likewise, the agreement “prioritises” the transfer, within three months, of three transfers out of the more than twenty-five that must change hands.
The first is that of the railways, which will result in the transfer to the Basque Government of the commuter lines still managed by Renfe: three lines in the metropolitan area of ??Bilbao; a narrow road between Bilbao and Balmaseda, and another nearby. The transfer has its repercussion, even though the main suburban sections and the Bilbao metro are already managed by the Basque institutions.
The second transfer that should be executed imminently is that of the homologation and validation of foreign degrees. The agreement states that the means will be transferred “to be able to approve and declare the equivalence of academic degrees obtained in the framework of foreign higher education systems”. In this case, the practical objective is very specific: to alleviate the shortage of health workers, a problem that affects half of Europe and that has been noticed in the Basque health system. In parallel with this measure, the parties in the Basque Government, the PNB and the PSE, have just approved a new Public Health law that includes, as an extraordinary provision, the “exemption from the nationality requirement” in the access to the Basque Health Service.
The third transfer that should come has to do with various phases of the migrant reception system. Although the system depends on the Central Executive, the Basque Government provides resources and attention to migrants through structures it has organized to alleviate the limitations of the model. The aim is to take charge of reception from the moment migrants arrive in Euskadi and organize the system autonomously and structurally.
Sources familiar with the negotiations point out that the arrival of the transfers in the specified period is “a matter of political will” and that it is feasible. For PNB, it is one of the key issues in this final mandate sprint. It would allow them to position themselves in an electoral context as a party committed to management and that negotiates in Madrid around issues, linked to self-government, that affect society on a day-to-day basis. The fundamental nature of this commitment, however, can be seen more clearly if it is turned upside down: what happens if the transfers do not arrive as agreed? It would mean as much as letting it be seen that the agreement just signed can turn into wet paper, as happened in the last legislature. The PNB cannot afford it. And the top Jeltzal leaders have already warned the Spanish Government.