We are in times of elections and warn us of the danger that will come to the Spanish Government on the next horizon with the right hand and the right end. Paradoxically, but in this context, the Basque parties (I would like to say the nationalists) are in strong competition between them, and the main reason for this confrontation is: If the successful party in the Spanish state were the PSOE, to see who can, the PNV or EH Bildu, be their next ally, decisive in the creation of a new Spanish government. We hope that this will facilitate the achievement of some improvements for the Basque people.

In the last legislature we have also seen competition of this kind between the two Basque parties, which in this campaign send messages along the same lines: “We will do it again,” says EH Bildu, in calculated ambiguity, and if the phrase generated interpretative doubts, to clarify it, renews the promise of “continuity.” For its part, the PNV assures us that it is “the Basque party that best defends the Basque Country in Madrid”.

They both look at Madrid. But who has to look at this Basque country? Do we need to raise hopes again for the governance of a possible “progressive government”? What new promise do we have from that listening area? Or if those who accede to the Spanish government were right and right extremists, then what? Then will the parties of the house stop?

It cannot be denied that the configuration of a government of one kind or another in Madrid may have different consequences for Basque society, and that, in that sense, it is not a desirable option for us. Nor can it be denied that the presence of representatives of the Basque parties in the state parliaments can help to prevent this situation, especially if they are representatives with firmer positions on the Spanish right. But the behaviour of the last legislature cannot be repeated, the position of the main political conduct of the Basque parties in dealings with the parliament and government of Madrid cannot be taken for granted, legitimising the state itself and while the construction of Euskal Herria is excluded and weakened. The latter is what is happening as a result of that wrong behavior. Increasingly integrated into the State, while the Basque Country loses strength in the collective imaginary of citizenship and in the social structures themselves.

In this sense, the lack of direction found in the basic self-definition of the Basque nation is paradigmatic: Euskal Herria is our nation, the cultural and political reality of the seven countries, even if it is not yet administrative. This has been the case in the long history of the centuries. But in this way a series of vicissitudes occurred, and there was talk of Euskaria, first, and Euskadi later, which was born with the intention of designating a national community of a specific political nature. The truth is that they caused confusion in the use of the concept of the Basque Country, first in the first article of the 1979 Statute of Autonomy, by attributing to the partial political community of three countries the two metaphorical names “Euskadi and Euskal Herria” as synonyms. A serious mistake, as you see today. With serious practical consequences: When Eustat counts “The population of the Basque Country” today it gives 2,186,517 inhabitants, but Gaindegia tells us that in the Basque Country we live 3,193,513 Basques (I said it well when speaking Basque? What should I say? ). So we are.

We need nationalism, not so much Madrid or Parisian.