“When spiders weave together, they can immobilize a lion.” This is how Arnaldo Otegi expressed himself at a rally in the Catalan electoral campaign in February 2021 together with Oriol Junqueras and Pere Aragonès. The process still had an intense attraction on the Abertzale left. Otegi confessed it at that event: “What the people of Catalonia have done in recent years is something totally extraordinary, it is colossal, it is the democratic revolution of the 21st century. You have shown that it can be done and that for the Basques has been a great lesson.” That fascination, three years later, seems to have faded.
At that time, Junqueras was participating in the rally thanks to one of the permits he already had while in prison. The pardons would arrive four months later. Otegi's support goes very well for ERC to reaffirm his pro-independence radicalism. Furthermore, at that time Junts – always the shadow of Carles Puigdemont – insisted on reactivating the unilateral declaration of independence. The irritation that this chant provoked in Junqueras was evident: “We do not want to declare independence 2,000 times and have it last a few moments,” he declared in RAC-1. All of this was in the previous election campaign. Now that the next one is approaching, EH Bildu no longer launches proclamations of admiration towards 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 independence pedigree, although less and less. On the other hand, in Euskadi the campaign does not run along those lines at all. What the sovereigntist parties offer to the Basques is the promise of better management of a self-government that, for the moment, they propose to expand and consolidate. It is true that Euskadi has a crucial advantage over Catalonia, since it has the economic agreement, which provides it with control of its tax revenues.
It is not that the independence aspirations of the nationalist left have vanished, but the outcome of the Catalan process is one of the factors that has led them to reorient their strategy. Nor has the PNV flirted with clashing with the State again since the experience of the Ibarretxe plan.
The Peneuvistas have designed a different path. His outline 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 Íñigo Urkullu's mandate, the PNV entered into 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” caused the work to run aground. The path that the PNV intends to explore now is, in principle, more pragmatic and it hopes that EH Bildu and the PSE will be part of the agreement.
What does it consist of? 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 Statute of Guernica, it is established that the PNV and the PSOE will negotiate a "new phase" of updating Basque self-government within a period of no more than 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 “safeguarding of Basque powers” through a “system of guarantees based on bilaterality and forality.” This new self-government must be agreed upon in the Basque Parliament, in the Cortes and ratified in a referendum, like any autonomous statute.
The PNV considers that the moment is ideal for this leap in Basque autonomy to occur now with a broad consensus. In reality, between that party and EH Bildu they could reach the two-thirds of the Vitoria Chamber that is needed to approve it, but it is about establishing it on stronger foundations and having sufficient support in Madrid and, for this, the socialists are a piece fundamental. At the moment, due to the contacts that the Peneuvistas have maintained with EH Bildu, this formation is also willing to negotiate. For now, the nationalist left considers it necessary for Sánchez to remain in Moncloa, while the entire process of bringing ETA prisoners to Basque prisons develops.
This favorable period for negotiations that could open after the elections on the 21st would benefit, in principle, from the few appointments with the polls scheduled on the horizon after the summer. But politics is always subject to unforeseen events. 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 objective of governing is frustrated.
Given the lesson of the Ibarretxe plan first and the Catalan process later, the PNV is not willing to pay for any avenue that escapes its control, which means not getting carried away by rivalry in the sovereigntist sphere, something that is always difficult to manage. Meanwhile, Junts and ERC, each with different accents and always at odds, have entered a phase of demanding an agreed referendum while demanding a Basque-style fiscal pact. In this case, the possibility of broad consensus in Catalonia appears very distant.
