- Busturialdeko Hitza said that nearly 4,000 citizens have come to the noisy demonstration against the macro-project carried out this Saturday. The public and social agents have been concerned about the “huge impacts” that the museum “does not respond to the needs” of Busturialdea can generate.
Thanks to the convening of the Stop Guggenheim Urdaibai platform, thousands of people have met this Saturday, Day 28, at a demonstration from the Paseo de Gernika-Lumo. The protesters have left to refuse the project: They have launched claims like “not everything is money, Urdaibai is not on sale” and have called for “accountability” to the institutions and parties that are being heard. Citizens and other social actors also wanted to show their “support and adherence”.
The inhabitants of Busturialdea have expressed their concern about the “impact” this project will have on the Urdaibai biosphere reserve. It is known that this project will have two main buildings, linked by a “green track”, one in Gernika-Lumo, in the land of the former roofing company Dalia and another in the shipyard of Murueta.
Starting from the Paseo de Gernika, after crossing the center of the urban area, the demonstration was held in the Plaza de los Fueros, with the bertsolari Aitor Etxebarriazarraga being in charge of reading the manifesto. First of all, he wanted to make it clear that this is a project proposed and merged by the Guggenheim Foundation and that it has been carried out under the auspices of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the Basque Government and the Spanish State. In this regard, it reiterates that it responds to a “private need” and that it is a project “with all imposition”. “They want to leverage everyone’s money to realize the ideas of a few and fill certain pockets,” he added.
Perceived damage
According to the information provided by the platform members, the Guggenheim project of the Urdaibai reserve is expected to bring 140,000 visitors annually in the three summer months. Busturialdea’s neighbours and neighbours have denounced this as “undesirable consequences”: “It will seriously affect mobility, housing prices, daily life, language or culture.”
Etxebarriazarraga has highlighted the need to build “among all” the future of the region: “That future has to have the lives and nature of people in the middle; not everything is money, Urdaibai is not on sale.” Public administrations, institutions and parties have made a concrete demand from the platform: “This devastating and repressive meaningless project remains tomorrow.”