This Saturday, 7 May, the Council of Euskalgintza, together with several partners, has called the demonstration for Saturday. The event was attended by Secretary-General Paul Bilbao and representatives of the institutions that make up the Council, AEK, IKA, Sortzen, Topagunea, Euskal Herrian Euskaraz eta Emun, among others, as well as the Observatory on Linguistic Rights.

Model PAI: Another link in the strategy for mincing

First of all, Council Secretary General Paul Bilbao referred to the decision taken last Thursday by the Navarre Parliament to turn the PAI programme into a model: "We thought it was very serious. In fact, the public authorities have a specific obligation to guarantee the right of citizens to know the language of Navarre, which is currently not complied with by the Government of Navarre. This is a blow to the equality of the Navarros. In fact, the current educational model denies thousands of children and young people the right to know Euskera and leaves them without minimal notions of Euskera. In view of this, the possible right to know English is that it was at the center. They want to lay the façade of the rights that do not exist to the Basque decisions".

Bilbao recalled that when the IAP was launched, the then President of the Government clearly stated its main objective: "The comments of the then president, Mrs Barcina, in an interview on a television, had a great impact: With the PAI program, it was intended to paralyze the dissemination of teaching in Euskera". Moreover, in other territories with their own languages, such as Valencia or the Balearic Islands, similar teaching models were put in place to achieve the same objective: "It has become clear that in the territories in which it has been intended to implement models such as the PAI, it has been part of the strategy of dealing with minority language teaching, and in Navarra it was, and it is," he added.

On the other hand, the Council spokesman denounces the use of a speed commensurate with interests: "It has taken years to produce a decree that regulates Euskera as a merit, but they have launched a process of modelling the IAP. There, too, we see that some parties show perverse intentionality, especially when measures against the Basque people are at stake," he explained.

The need to cope with delays

In addition, the Secretary-General of the Council recalled the first main reason why the demonstration of 7 May was organized: "The Government of Navarra wants to adopt regulations that exclude the Basque and the Basque people. Consequently, it wants to return to the policies of the Upn era and abolish the measures approved by the courts." In this way, Bilbao has once again explained that the decree that the government intends to adopt not only entails a series of setbacks, but on some points it is more delayed than the policies of UPN. The Government has a single objective: "they intend to marginalize the Basque country and the community linked to the Basque country, putting on top a language that has no status in the territory".

Also, Bilbao has pointed out that not everything is worth, provided that citizenship is underestimated: "Parliamentary support for decisions to end the Basque Country and the Basque Country community does not mean that they are democratic decisions."

More accessions

The Council spokesman explained that in recent days more adhesions had been reached to the demonstration: "On the one hand, we think it is very important that the citizens send us requests for modification of the decree throughout Navarre. At the moment we have five hundred new requests to send them to the Government. Secondly, the accessions of agents as diverse as Duguna Dantza Taldea, Pensioners of Navarra Martxan, Carta de Derechos Sociales, EHGAM, Apantallamiento Euskaraz, Sasoia Elkartea are coming... Finally, it should be noted that 28 municipal technicians of the Basque Country of Navarre have joined the mobilization. To this we must add that a few weeks ago the majority of the Basque trade union also called to go out into the street."

However, Bilbao wanted to clarify that each one has its responsibility to deal with all these setbacks. That is why we also want to make a direct request to the political parties: the excuse for disagreement cannot be used to accept such decisions. It is time to put more pressure, to put the Basque issue at the centre and to squeeze. In fact, the conclusions of the decisions being taken can give rise to major setbacks in the process of normalization of the Basque country", concludes.