Various opinions will be heard on the binomial INDEPENDENCIA and PNV: That the PNV will never seek independence seriously; or perhaps yes, but that for this it will need a great pressure of independence; when it sees the time of independence, then yes, it will take the leap…

Even the most independence day symbolizes that independence in Euskal Herria is a long way away. From time to time we approach the right to decide. It was said that the successor of ETA had to be expected to act in a different way in sovereign power, since its armed activity hindered cooperation. And that was certainly the case, but after the silence of the arms there has been no sign of such collaboration, except in the initiatives of Entesku dago, still teenagers.

The Jeltzales promised in the electoral program of the Basque Parliament in 2012 that they would seek a new pact with the state to achieve a political concert with Madrid equivalent to the Economic Concert. The procedure was as follows: Creation of the Self-Government Paper in the Basque Parliament, to finalise its work at the end of 2014 and subsequently to draft a text articulated for a new statute that allows citizens to be consulted in 2015. At the end of October, Egibar announced that what was promised would not be fulfilled, that the work of the Rapporteurs has been extended and that there is no time to carry out a regulated text.

However, anyone could warn that, when we talk about Basques deciding, the problem is more serious and deeper than the question of time. The jeltzale and professor of the University of Deusto Xabier Barandiaran, near Egibar, made it clear in the summer courses of the UPV/EHU: there are no conditions for independence, for various reasons, but mainly due to lack of strength and strategy; the times have changed, has been brought to light with the lack of collaboration and communication between abertzales and other reasons (see Chronic July 7).

The GERNIKA STATUTE is dead, ELA said in Gernika on 19 October 1997. Former General Secretary of the union, José Elorrieta, reflects the unwillingness of the PP Government to comply with the Statute that Rodrigo used – yes, today accused of corruption – when he said of the transfers from INEM: “They will not be done in this life or in the other” (Esan eta Egin, interview with Joxe Elorrieta. ).

Many actors in Basque society were stirred up, but representatives of the PNV, EA, HB, Ezker Batua, Zutik, Elkarri, LAB, EHNE, etc. were present at the event. I was sowing something new and in just over a year those present signed the Lizarra-Garazi Pact. After its failure, the Ibarretxe Plan began to germinate and with its first signs of sinking the Loiola process developed. Elorrieta says the two were seen with good eyes, but they soon realized that he could not go far: “Over time, we realized that he had no plan and therefore did not intend to focus that sovereign objective on a policy of alliances.” On Loiola's session: "The Abertzale left cannot be mistaken in one thing. It has no correlation of forces to achieve it on its own. It cannot. Therefore, the other will not give it to him. The scope of Basque decision is above all a problem of the correlation of forces”.

It is not very clear that the Abertzale left realises that it cannot do so only now, because EH Bildu has recently presented in the Basque Parliament a proposal for a Consultation Act which has no chance of succeeding. Or you probably know it, but then you would have to better measure playing small and big, without smoking before time.

And how strongly will the PNV want to achieve a new political status? In the Basque Government it has reached an agreement with the PSE-EE, with which it governs in coalition in the Council of Gipuzkoa, and in the Self-Government Report I had hoped that PSE and pp would approach, without wanting to march alone with EH Bildu.

There is increasing evidence: the two main branches of nationalism are increasingly present in the search for new strategies of sovereignty separately. That always weak flame of Maltzaga, drowns more than lights up on the stage that follows ETA.