In the countdown to International Pride Day, LGBT+, the term pinkwashing is often heard in recent years as a marketing strategy for the promotion of institutions, countries, people and companies. The Movimiento de Liberación Gay-Les de Euskal Herria has focused on the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the City Council of Bilbao and the Basque Government, noting that the Bilbao Bizkaia Harro initiative, formerly known as BilbaoPride, is “a festival that commercializes the demands and historical problems of the LGTBI+ movement” on June 28. These entities have accused the sex-dissident collective of “watering with public money”, through transfers of over 400,000 euros to the association with links to the LGBT PNV Ortzadar.

The group has assured that the Public Administration has introduced significant amounts in this celebration between the years 2019 and 2023, specifically 240,000 euros in 2019, 20,130 euros in 2020 and 74,644,83 euros in 2021, between the City Council of Bilbao, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Basque Government. In the years 2022 and 2023, EUR 35,412,65 and EUR 35,801,76 were sent to Ortzadar, adding the nominative grants, the minor contracts and the subsidy from the Basque Government.

Ehgama denounces that Bilbao Bizkaia Harro has been designed by the Tourism Department of the City Council of Bilbao and organized by the LGBT Ortzadar association, with public subsidies to benefit the PNV and its closest members. “This celebration is part of a mercantilist plan that seeks to promote gay tourism of medium level foreign with money, after which the LGTBI+ movement hides an absolute disinterest in the real needs, problems and demands of Bilbao and Bizkaia, which is a pinkwashing,” explains the association n.Ehgama added that it totally condemns the party model promoted by Bilbao Bizkaia Harro,