EUSKADI: The "Ibarretxe Plan"
01 January 2005
In February, the Spanish Parliament rejected the Basque Parliament's proposed reform the
Estatuto de Autonomía para el País Vasco (Statute of the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country). The Basque Parliament had approved the
Plan Ibarretxe (named after the president of the Basque government who presented it) in December 2004 after it received the backing of the three parties that support the government and three votes from the former
Batasuna (the party that was banned because of its supposed links to ETA).
One of the main limits of the
Plan is that it only enjoys the support of the nationalist parties. The backing of the
Izquierda Unida does not change this because, formally, it only permits the plan to be discussed in the Spanish Parliament, (although it appears obvious that this is required of it in return for remaining in the Basque government, alongside the
Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV, Basque Nationalist Party) and
Eusko Alkartasuna (EA). The partial backing that the plan was given by
Batasuna (one could call it tactical backing) does not indicate much, other than the fact that it does not represent the entire Basque nationalist community.
Its partial character, that of representing only one of the identities that are present in Basque society, not only makes its progress in the Spanish parliament impossible, but also prevents the possibility of it being adopted by the Basque society as a whole.
For the PNV-EA the Ibarrexte Plan serves several purposes: as an electoral tool to secure votes in the autonomous regional elections in April 2005; it reduces the political space occupied by ETA and by
Batasuna while simultaneously providing ETA with a route to smoothen and justifying its abandoning the armed struggle. The plan, which is the main driving force for cohesion in the nationalist-Basque world in the last 60 years, contributes to secure the PNV's hegemony over Basque nationalism as a whole.
Its use as an electoral weapon has become all the more evident in the run-up to the regional elections, but the elections also illustrate its limitations, because their result is not expected to significantly alter the parliamentary or regional balance of power. The nationalist and non-nationalist blocs will continue to split society into two blocs and the problem cannot be resolved by discovering which of the two halves is larger. Furthermore, the fact that
Batasuna will be prevented from participating in these elections gives them a sense superficiality, highlighting the provisional nature of the next Basque Parliament and lengthening ETA's life span. It has been demonstrated that political debate over Basque self-determination remains impossible while ETA continues to exist.
Its recent situation highlights that ETA is in a terminal phase. It seems apparent that ETA no longer represents a serious threat to the stability of the Spanish regime and this substantially affects the credibility of its project. This, alongside its increasing isolation, not just in Spanish society but also in the Basque country, means that any plans, debates or rumours that surface always revolve around the possible routes for laying down their weapons. However, ETA continues to show the ability to renew its ranks, in spite of a ceaseless trickle of arrests and it maintains strong bonds with the
izquierda abertzale (nationalist left), a very important sector of Basque society.
With its "no" the Spanish Congress has categorically told Ibarretxe that his proposed reforms cannot be a meeting point, suggesting that an amicable arrangement with the Spanish state against the representatives of the vast majority of the population makes no sense. Moreover, it is argued that Basque nationalism must realise that the fact of placing practically all of its fundamental beliefs, all of the dogmas in its doctrine, inside the Basque statute is not a reasonable man