Monday, October 2. Full morning at the Euskalduna palace in Bilbao to listen to Salvador Illa. The first secretary of the PSC has been invited by the newspaper El Correo and Petronor, organizers of a series of talks on current events.
It is not just another conference. The Basque Nationalist Party wanted to send a strong signal. Four representatives of the Euzkadi Buru Batzar attended the event: Andoni Ortuzar, president of the party, Joseba Aurrekoetxea, secretary of organization, Itxaso Atutxa, president of the party in Bizkaia and name to take into account for the future, and Mikel Burzako, head of Relations International. The speaker is introduced by Emiliano López Atxurra, president of Petronor, who fondly remembers his old friendship with Joan Reventós, Joan Prats, Isidre Molas and Jesús Salvador, names of the first leading group of the PSC, when he was a student in Barcelona. A better reception is difficult to imagine.
Illa reciprocates with praise for the political “craft,” while looking at the table occupied by the PNV leaders. The first secretary of the Catalan socialists asks for “more office” from the leaders of Esquerra Republicana and Junts per Catalunya, and the entire room knows what he means. In Barcelona the 155 silver coins from October 26, 2017 tinkle again.
In the conversations after the conference, Basque perplexity is detected over the modus operandi of ERC and Junts, parties that won the lottery of historical materialism in the July 23 elections. Immersed in a sleepless competition for more than twenty years, the two nominally pro-independence Catalan parties are separately negotiating the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, constantly looking askance at each other and once again feeling attracted to the game of chicken: let's see who is first. to lower the piston.
For the current Basque political leaders, including EH Bildu in the photo, this tactic causes a certain stupefaction. “Let's not play with fire,” Ortuzar warned last Monday from the cover of El Correo. The PNV is not at all interested in a repeat of the general elections in January, an event from which it could emerge weakened, very few months before the elections to the Basque Parliament, which should be held in July and which will possibly be brought forward. EH Bildu does not fear a repetition of the general elections, but it does not contemplate that possibility with enthusiasm either.
A revenge of the PP-Vox bloc in January would make it difficult for Bildu to land softly on the track of political realism. With this turn, it would be difficult for them to complete their strategy of electoral overflow of the PNV through generational change and a progressive assimilation of social democratic policies, a strategy that has already cost them a split in their youth organization, Ernai, heir to the outlawed Segi and Jarrai.
Here is a novelty that is little talked about. The new Socialist Youth Coordinator is demonstrating the capacity for mobilization. In their demonstrations there are many more red flags than ikurriñas. Something is changing in Basque society, where more than 50% of the strikes called in Spain are currently taking place. The ELA union, founded in 1911 at the request of the PNV to stop the socialist UGT, has established itself as an important and autonomous actor. It has more than one hundred thousand members and a powerful resistance fund. ELA is today the nightmare of Lehendakari Íñigo Urkullu, but it also clashes with Bildu, whose union branch remains LAB. It is not an easy board to describe. Everyone watches each other, everyone studies each other and, fortunately, no one puts the gun on the table anymore.
In short, PNV and EH Bildu also compete intensely, but they do it in a different way. Now they play chess, not the chicken game.
The PNV has decided to reconcile with Junts after six years of coldness. Ortuzar and Aurrekoetxea visited Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo on September 15. Since those from Sabin Etxea have a “trade”, that movement reveals that they see water in the pool. Mood of the Euzkadi Buru Batzar: “Prudent optimism.”
They know that Puigdemont does not accept guardianships, but they want to be within the new dynamic. It is a message to Basque society – the PNV reaffirms itself as a central force – and a message to the Spanish right. That is why Alberto Núñez Feijóo got so angry with Aitor Esteban in the investiture debate. If the general elections are not repeated, the option left to Feijóo is to pray that in future Basque elections, PNV and PSOE, who now govern in coalition, do not gain a majority and are forced to choose between the help of Bildu or that of the PP. Nobody knows when those elections will be held. The leading group of the PNV is not seduced by the fact that they coincide with the European elections on June 9, 2024, which will once again be a great battle between socialists and popular ones.
Bildu is in no hurry. Your bet is in the medium term. On the night of July 23, they informed the PSOE that it could count on its six votes, without prior conditions. They care more about dynamics than haggling. They refrain from any criticism of their ERC friends, but do not hide their surprise at the Catalan negotiating method. “If Junts and ERC do not agree on a common platform, it would be best if they attended the negotiation together, even if it is with divergent positions; two negotiation tables that are not in communication can end badly,” the Abertzales warn.
Prudence, caution and support. Basque synthesis.
