The PNV has taken off a weight in the last few hours, confirming that Pedro Sánchez's Executive shows absolute willingness to comply with the investiture agreement signed on November 10. In relation to full compliance with the Statute of Gernika, the agreement identified three powers that must be transferred in three months, and Jeltzal sources are now confident that this point will be fulfilled. The central government also gave the green light this Tuesday to the prevalence of autonomous agreements, another point of the agreement, and, likewise, the Council of Ministers moved to enable the disannexation of Usansolo, lowering the minimum threshold from 5,000 to 4,000 inhabitants. to become an independent municipality, as the Basque nationalists introduced in the pact.
These movements have reassured the PNV, which after the precedents of the last legislature feared entering into a new dynamic of non-compliance. Now, on the eve of Basque elections, the Jeltzales see that their role in Madrid can be strengthened and they can recover, to a certain extent, one of the strengths they have historically boasted about.
These points of the investiture agreement that are being prioritized have a purely utilitarian aspect; These are areas linked to management that, within their -limited- dimension, can result in tangible improvements for the citizen, something that the PNV is interested in claiming, reinforcing the idea that greater self-government contributes to improving the quality of life. of the citizens.
The three powers agreed to be transferred urgently are a good example. This is, first of all, railway competition, which will result in the transfer to the Basque Government of the management of the commuter lines that Renfe still manages: three lines in the metropolitan area of Bilbao, one narrow gauge between Bilbao and Balmaseda and another commuter train in Gipuzkoa.
The second transfer that will be carried out is the homologation and validation of foreign qualifications, which in practice seeks to alleviate the shortage of healthcare workers, a problem that affects half of Europe and that has been felt in Basque healthcare.
The third transfer that should arrive has to do with various phases of the migrant reception system and seeks for the Basque Executive to take charge of reception from the moment the migrants arrive in Euskadi. The objective is to organize this system autonomously and structurally, preventing, for example, migrants who arrive in the Basque Country from being left on the streets.
The same perspective applies to the prevalence of regional agreements, which offer better conditions than state ones and which was an issue already demanded following the approval of the labor reform. In the case of the disannexation of Usansolo, it is a very local issue: the majority will of an enclave that today belongs to Galdakao to manage itself autonomously, becoming a municipality.
This desire is due to issues such as its location, far from the center of the municipality, and the only impediment for this demand, which is very common in Usansolo, to come to fruition is the minimum threshold of 5,000 inhabitants. Although the PNV has not historically shared the demand, requesting this legal change, approved by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, allows it to position itself as a party attached to the closest reality of the citizens and sensitive to bringing to Madrid even such demands. local.
The Jeltzales were very satisfied with the investiture pact they sealed a month ago, much more concrete than the one they had signed four years ago. The problem for the Jeltzales lay in the path they were going to take, after the precedents of the last legislature. The failures of the central government during the last mandate left the PNV's historical asset as a getter in Madrid very damaged, a role in which it now competes with EH Bildu.
This week's movements once again position the PNV where it wants to be and at a relevant time, on the eve of Basque elections.
The PNV wants to go to the polls with a good background to present to the Basque citizens, and the agreements negotiated in Madrid play an important role. In fact, they are working on a schedule of “achievements” for the coming months that will determine the electoral date.
