The Lendakari, Imanol Pradales, was the first protagonist of the cycle of contacts that Pedro Sánchez initiated with the different regional presidents following the debate on the single financing of Catalonia agreed with ERC. The nationalist leader informed the President of the Government of the need to go further in the transfer of the agreed transfers so that the first package is carried out before the end of the year.
To this end, he announced the closing of a date for the celebration of the Bilateral Transfer Commission at the end of October. Pradales said that he sees Sánchez with the intention of extending the legislature, which, as he stated, will not be hindered by the Basque Government, since the presence of Sánchez is a positive element for progress in the matter of “autonomy”.
Since the first meeting between the two men, on July 26, their teams have been working on an agenda in line with what was agreed in November between the socialists and the PNV before the inauguration of the President of the Government. The one that had to be reviewed today and that “forces everyone to accelerate their pace”. “I have given you a realistic and achievable schedule of pending transfers to close a first block before the end of the year”, explained the Lendakari during his appearance after the meeting from the Moncloa Palace.
This concerns issues such as coastal management and planning, maritime rescue skills, meteorology, work permits for foreign personnel and a film fund. Then, as the Basque Government has transferred in recent months, these more complex skills will disappear, such as the economic management of social security or the security of critical infrastructures such as ports and airports.
But what has been agreed between the PNV and the PSOE, which govern in coalition in the Basque Autonomous Community, does not stop there. After having “fully respected” the Statute of Guernica, Pradales insisted on its updating, expansion and improvement. That is, the debate on the new Statutory Pact that the PNV will begin to open at the end of September and which seeks to establish a bilateral relationship between the Basque Country and the State (Spain in nationalist terminology) similar to that established in the Concert, a system of guarantees and national recognition of the region.
Regarding the differentiated financing of Catalonia compared to the rest of Spain, a sine qua non condition that ERC imposed to support the investiture of Salvador Lla as president of the Catalan Generalitat, Pradales said that he would respect what had been agreed with the State. “I am not going to enter someone else’s house because I do not like anyone to enter the Basque house,” he said.
Lendakari, in line with what Basque nationalism has been expressing since the issue of financing entered fully on the agenda, issued a warning, fearing that the specificity of the Concert could be damaged along the way. “I demand respect for the model of the Basque Concert, which is attacked with enormous ignorance of what it means,” he said.
(news in expansion)
