Barely three months after taking office, the new Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, solemnized this Wednesday that “the time has come” to begin the negotiation process in Euskadi and with the State for a new Statute that goes beyond that of 1979, without guaranteeing that the priority remains to finalize the transfers pending for four and a half decades. It was agreed with the government of Pedro Sánchez that, by 2025, the pending transfers will be carried out, including the management of the economic regime of Social Security, never transferred until now to any autonomous community. But he also maintains that we must take advantage of the “opportunity” of the “context” offered by the political majority of the Congress to activate a process that also involves the “recognition of the national reality” of the Basque Country. “It is time to be brave,” he insisted.
Pradales appeared this Wednesday at the New Economy Forum, held in a crowded hotel in the centre of Bilbao to hear the speech of the Basque president, as he himself observed with surprise. In his speech, due to the logic of the format, he placed great emphasis on economic issues, such as his clear commitment to industry, investment and scientific and technological issues, which even earned him his own portfolio in his great cabinet, the largest in the history of democracy in Euskadi. He did not deny the existing global “uncertainties”, but he did draw a satisfactory macro panorama in the Basque case, where he hopes to “consolidate” that there are a million people “who work and contribute”.
However, he also insisted that “the time has come” to explore this statutory “new pact”. The promise as such is not new. He accompanied the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, from 2012 to 2024, without ever reaching fruition, although work was carried out in a presentation of the Basque Parliament until 2020. Now, the PNV and the PSE-EE have incorporated this point as another of their agreements for the future in the new legislature and the PNV has also made commitments in this regard in exchange for its support for Sánchez in Spain.
Pradales explains that the Euskadi of 2024 is not that of 1979. He mentioned, for example, that it is necessary to incorporate into the Statute the effects of entry into the European Union, in 1986, and the new social rights recognized. . Basque is the only autonomous charter not reformed with that of Galicia. But he also aspires to obtain new powers that provide a “response” to the “needs” of Basque society – he did not explain them – and, above all, a framework of “guarantees” for the “effective implementation” of the planned projects. prerogatives. The PNV has been complaining for years that the Constitutional Court is a “bought arbiter” and that there are “recentralizing” impulses in Madrid. In line with Urkullu, he gives as an example the Economic Agreement, a single financing system for Alava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa and which is negotiated “bilaterally” between the State and the autonomous community. “This applies to a new legal framework for institutional and political relations between the Basque Country and the State,” he said. He also mentioned that the process would end with a referendum, but this is something already contemplated in the ordinary procedure for statutory reform.
The president of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar, present among the audience, has already announced a round table with the parties to try to begin the negotiation of the bases of this reform of the Statute. Pradales has delegated this process to his party and has asked that it be “discreet”. “I want to foster a climate that allows a round of negotiations to progress,” he said. He added that, “as Lehendakari”, he must “be particularly focused on pending transfers”, that is, on negotiations with the State to reach agreements on issues such as the management of literal aid, cinematographic or the management of security. Social.
Lehendakari took advantage of the platform to take stock of his first months in Ajuria Enea. He stressed that he has a government with an absolute majority in Parliament – where no vote or control session has taken place since he took office -, a coalition with the PSE-EE that is “stable and solid”. Of course, it did not appear that the PNV came out of the April elections with a “clear and clear message” in the form of a drop in support that was then repeated with more intensity in the European elections in June. Of course, he warned that EH Bildu, which linked him to the number of seats, proposes an alternative model “that has fundamental differences” with his own and implicitly warned that this same political formation “gels” regimes like that of Venezuela. “I am happy. It is intense. We have a magnificent team. We have a lot of enthusiasm and motivation. There is a great atmosphere. Desire to do things. There will be times when we will be even angrier,” he also noted.
