Madrid. “We must break with the vestiges of the 1978 regime and take advantage of the fact that we are the majority” in the “progressive and plurinational bloc,” he said in an interview with the day Senator Gorka Elejabarrieta, one of the main strategists and expert in conflict resolution of EH-Bildu, a broad coalition of progressive and left-wing formations that fight for the independence of the Basque Country.
The new assignment of this politician, born in Bilbao in 1977, is to act as spokesman for his group in the Spanish Senate and as director of International Relations.
Elejabarrieta explained that the current moment of politics in the country is a “unique opportunity” to overcome the political and territorial model that arose from the transition to democracy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco (1976), which in his opinion is a “cracked” model.
Hence, he speaks of a “progressive and plurinational” block in the Spanish State that urgently calls for a new way of assuming the “nations without a State”, such as Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, and that must be faced “throughout the of this legislature”, which began in the session on the 17th and will end in a maximum period of four years.
– As a result of the last vote in the Congress of Deputies to elect the table, do you think it is already a fact that the socialist Pedro Sánchez will carry out the investiture?
-No, we believe that this vote was a very important step, because on the one hand the progressive and plurinational bloc came out stronger, and, on the other, because the one on the right came out very weak. The division of the PP and Vox leaves them without any option to run for office. But now a new battle begins that has to do with the investiture (re-election). I believe that the foundations are solid, but it is up to the government to face this phase with ambition so that the presidency and the legislature are a reflection of this progressive and multinational block”.
–But there is still a lot of uncertainty and even nervousness about the final meaning of the Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) vote…
–I would not say nervousness, but the government must be clear that the investiture and the legislature must be a reflection of that bloc that parties such as JxCat, EH-Bildu, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and others make up. It is a block that has been demanding for a long time another type of reserve for nations without a State within the Spanish State.
What exactly do you mean when you ask the Spanish government to make an effort?
–I want to say that it is not normal that in the 21st century a plurinational State like Spain does not officially and explicitly recognize the richness of languages. It’s been decades since the transition to democracy took place, we are all of legal age and we believe that we can at least be at the gates of an incipient dialogue to try to find a political solution to this dispute. If we don’t do it now, I don’t know when we’ll do it. I see it as an opportunity, not a risk.
– But what concrete gestures are you expecting from the government?
– We do not put red lines and we have already been saying since the campaign that we are going to make all the efforts that put a stop to the advance of the right. But we also believe that this legislature has to be the one that sinks its teeth into the territorial model. It is an opportunity for the whole of the State. We, the nationalist left, were among the few who bet from the beginning on the rupture of the current model, and today there are many more who believe that that so-called transition was neither exemplary nor democratic. So we have to break with the vestiges of the 78 regime and take advantage of the fact that we are the majority.
– Definitely undermine what they call the regime of 78?
-That’s how it is. Break with the regime of 78, which has been cracking in recent years and we must continue moving in that direction.
-In this task, they will have to drag the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), where there is still reluctance to this project…
–The PSOE must always be pushed; socially, economically, territorially. You have to push it. And I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, it’s going to be very complicated, but I think it’s possible.
–One of the demands of the Catalan nationalist parties is to approve the amnesty for those accused of the 2017 declaration as soon as possible. Would this amnesty also have any direct consequences on the group of Basque prisoners?
– Through the judicialization of politics, real progress has never been achieved. So that includes solving the judicial consequences that a political conflict has caused. We obviously see with good eyes everything that helps to dejudicialize the conflict and that it be resolved through political means.
“In the Basque Country we have had a peace process very similar to the one that has taken place in other latitudes of the planet, such as Northern Ireland or South Africa. I do not imagine that South Africa could have made progress in resolving the political conflict by keeping Nelson Mandela in jail, just as I do not imagine that in Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement and the entire peace process could have been resolved by keeping the republican or unionist prisoners in prison. International experience shows that this type of conflict requires finding a solution to the consequences of the conflict, including the issue of prisoners. And there are pending tasks.”
– Do you think that the threat of the extreme right in Spain is neutralized or is it still latent?
–It continues to be latent, among other reasons because it is not a phenomenon that is limited solely to the Spanish State. It is happening in many parts of the world, in Argentina recently, in Europe there are many examples: France, Hungary, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland… I would say that in Europe as a whole the rise of the extreme right is an increasingly important factor. worrying.
–Do you think the time has come for the government in Euskadi, its formation, the nationalist left, to finally be able to remove the all-powerful PNV from power?
-In the Basque Country a change is coming. That change has already begun. I do not rule out that it will be in the next elections, but we do not want to talk about dates. What is clear is that EH-Bildu is a force on the rise and the PNV is a force that is in permanent decline, among other reasons, because it has an exhausted model and that at the management level some great pillars of the society, such as public health or the autonomous police, the Ertzaintza.
So, is the Basque Country ready for a government headed by you, once ETA has been dissolved and the wound left by the violence is in the process of healing?
–We believe so, that our time is coming. EH-Bildu is a broad front that has more and more people and political sectors, is more and more plural and is in permanent construction. It is not a finished space, but it aspires to have more and more people and sectors applying the common denominator of focusing on working on what we share. And thus create a great front that has a strategy and a clear direction in which we are going little by little to make a great transformation.
