Etxeberria tells us that energy poverty is harsh, they also have a Community boiler and without burning it they have to pay EUR 120-140 per month. The couple who had worked four or five years ago and she, “the couple stayed on the street with the cuts of the foral deputation, I too became unemployed because of the pandemic, and since then we have been getting loose jobs, but living hardly. Today we are both unemployed and savings have been exhausted in these years.” In the face of the cold, he says that at home they will have to cover more. “The greatest pity is given to me by the child, because although he is small he does not realize it, you want to give him everything possible and he cannot. The situation is not simple and the future perspective is also rather bad. Furthermore, we are not the only ones, the friends of the area are suffering a similar situation. Fortunately, in our case we live in a fairly new, well-insulated, official shelter, much worse will be those in an old house, and those in the street, of course.”

Supporting energy poverty sometimes leads to contradictions, he explains. “For example, Goiener is a renewable energy cooperative that we have hired at home, but at the moment we are thinking if we have to go to another company to get a social bonus, it is very uncomfortable, but the situation puts you in that position and with other things it also happens, you have to prioritize.”

“I don’t want fish, I want cane”

“Go shopping and see how prices have risen is amazing and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. In the CAV the strategy of the PNV has been to invest some money in the social to buy social peace, but privatization is dominating and less and less is invested in the social. Real social investment is needed, not just economic, philosophical and political, but integral. In any case, they want to ask for social help, but we also have dignity; as the saying goes, I don’t want fish, I want cane”.

“People have been asked to sacrifice for a long time. Macron solemnly said that the age of riches had ended; indeed, barbarism, at least for him has not ended, or we have seen some cut in military and police spending, in politicians’ diets, in salaries. No, because they have absolute impunity, and they also always place responsibility on the people. Sacrifices have always been on the workers, while large companies, energy companies, banks… accumulate profits. It is terrible, I am clear that the system has failed, we have clearly seen the shortcomings of capitalism in the pandemic, but we are anesthetized.”

Paradigm shift

In Etxeberria’s words, we experience a paradigm shift: “Within the geostrategic framework there is strong competition between the US and China, and what is happening in Ukraine must also be understood within the AEB-NATO scheme – China – Russia. I usually say that we are in the Third World War and people say “But what do you say?” because we have the two previous world wars at the forefront and we represent a military contingency, but the Third World War has many elements, economic, social, of authoritarianism (we have seen how the pandemic has been used to control citizens)… and we are immersed in it”.

The problem of the Etxeberria family is not a particular problem, it is global, and we have to put in place mechanisms to deal with the situation: “Defending communities, consumer groups, cooperatives… That’s the way, if we’re not going to stop.”