This Wednesday, on the eve of the forty-fifth anniversary of the 1979 Basque Statute, the Basque PP has claimed its paternity. And Alianza Popular, whose leader was the former Francoist minister Manuel Fraga and which was later refounded as the Popular Party, expressly asked for a ‘no’ in the referendum because the unity of Spain was apparently at risk.
The leader of the Basque ‘populares’, Javier de Andrés, has pointed out that the Basque law of laws was “led” by a “center-right party” that governed in Spain, in reference to the centrist UCD of Adolfo Suárez. “The men and women of the Popular Party feel we are heirs to that union of center-right forces. “Not in vain was the center-right of Spain the one that projected the Spain of the autonomies,” he stated at an event held in the Arriaga park in Vitoria, next to a symbolic hermitage of the Alava province and next to a sapling of the tree from Gernika.
“Over the years, our political current has participated in the drafting of all the Statutes of autonomy of Spain, except one, that of Catalonia [de 2006]which we understood did not respond to the criteria of public service and equity among citizens,” De Andrés continued. The PP, with that name, emerged in 1989. Although cadres from UCD – or the later CDS – joined the ‘popular’ ranks – they also ended up in other parties -, the PP is the continuity of Manuel Fraga’s AP. Until his death just a decade ago, the former minister of the dictatorship and also the autonomous president of Galicia in democracy had the title of “founding president.”
AP called for a ‘no’ to the Basque Statute. “It aggravates the misunderstandings of the Constitution, in order to define Spain as a single nation for all Spaniards; implies abandonment of the powers of the State within the territorial scope of the Basque Country, without having achieved a balance of powers; “It establishes the foundations of a cultural and political dynamic of distancing and separation, and forgets the peculiarities of each of the three Basque provinces,” it was argued then, as reported by ‘El País’. Years later, however, the PP has championed the defense of the Statute in Euskadi. In parallel, and given the non-commemoration of the anniversary by the Basque nationalist forces, the PSE-EE also claims to be the only family that participated in the statutory consensus and that remains in it now.
De Andrés has also made other considerations about the Statute. He has assured that more self-government is not synonymous with more well-being. He has also indicated that the PP could join a reform but making it clear that not to do so in a sovereign key. “Why have we stopped being a reference in Health or social services? Why are our young university students now the ones who go to other communities instead of us being the ones who recruit talent? It is not because of the lack of opportunities that the Statute has given us. Others with less capabilities have known how to use them better. This proves that more self-government does not mean more well-being. The purposes for which this self-government has been used have not been those of well-being, but rather that of separation, fracture and social tension,” he stated. He has also warned that the “fracture” of the single Social Security fund would be a risk, although he has recognized that the Statute prevents it now that this transfer pending since 1979 is being negotiated.
And he concluded: “Of course we believe that a new Statute is necessary. A Statute that takes us out of the paralysis in which Euskadi finds itself, that takes us out of clientelism and political control of every gesture of our society. A Statute that gives us freedom as people and does not subject us to the constant manipulation of our decisions and the permanent conditioning of our freedom. Of course we need a new Statute, a Statute that puts the family first, that builds bridges, that guarantees our personality, that does not force us. We need a Statute of freedom for the Basques against unrealizable claims.”
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