The Government is opposed on Tuesday to the establishment of an independent Opinion Research Centre proposed by EH Bildu. EH Bildu denounces that the Sociological Prospecting Cabinet, attached to Lehendakaritza, will continue as it has been "to preside over the political interests and criteria of lehendakari and the government and without guaranteeing the fundamental principles of this type of organization: independence, neutrality, objectivity and transparency".

Josu Estarrona presented two weeks ago the Bill for the creation of the Centre for Opinion Studies, as the government’s model in this matter is “an anomaly to correct”. Because “surveys or sociological research can serve to generate opinion and to mark trends and we must avoid the temptation of governments at every moment to use these surveys and studies according to their political interests; that is why we have proposed the creation of a Centre for Opinion Studies because it is very important to guarantee the autonomy, neutrality, transparency and objectivity of this type of organisms, to ensure that the criteria that guide their work are exclusively political, to ensure the

EH Bildu parliamentarian recalled that both the PNV and the PSE approved in 2007 the need to regulate as an activity of the Sociological Prospecting Office to ensure independence, objectivity and neutrality. The only explanation for this change of position is that the Government wants to continue to use this body on the basis of its political interests.”

Moreover, the government’s arguments for rejecting EH Bildu’s proposal are “very sparse” for the sovereign party. “They say that the Cabinet works according to annual planning and transparency, but no one knows that planning, nor how it works. They also say that the databases of the studies are available to parliamentarians and researchers, but nobody knows where.”