At the beginning of the week, they announced the creation of a crisis table for surveillance management, in which they would participate, extending 48 hours to governments, trade unions and political parties. What assessment do you make of the responses you received?

Well, in principle, very good, although Urkullu has not responded. We are working and working and on Monday we will hold the first meeting of the Bureau. We will have to see how the table is set, but surely there will be a lot of people, many have wanted to join. Training is very diverse, we will meet people coming from very different areas. We are very happy with the answer. At the moment it is very important to put vigilance at the centre and not to launch neoliberal apocalypse in the name of the crisis.

In the work team, we have women from different backgrounds, that's really important, because our experts are not just doctors. We also have our expert women on the street, women in care, migrants in irregular situations… In addition, very interesting figures have joined the group that will be announced later.

What reading do you do in the face of Urkullu's void?

We have set up the table and invited them, and they have not answered. Our proposal is constructive, our aim is not to make a political massacre, but quite the opposite. But it has become clear that Urkullu does not want to open the table, that he does not want to sit with the social and social partners. We get angry because it doesn't give us an interlocution, and then they're going to go to the street on March 8 or November 25, selling something. I therefore believe that we must be absolutely critical of his cabinet.

I would say that Urkullu is blind, he doesn't know how to distinguish what's most important right now. I believe that now the most important thing is to teach the people that the primary goal is care, and not only am I taking care of adults and children, but also to direct all of our objectives towards another model. I would say that Urkullu is very scared.

But well, we say we have a skill that neither Urkullu nor government has: it's the ability to organize people. We organize people, and in this case the organization is also being impressive: we are collecting a lot of information, we are preparing documents, we are working a lot for the table. The fact that Urkullu does not want to know shows how patriarchal his point of view can be, how neoliberal it is, and how he has abandoned those of us who have a great deal to say in this case.

It is clear that Urkullu is unable to manage eco-political issues, as we have seen with the Zaldibar event. On the other hand, we have seen how the PNV always gives priority to the company, and if at the moment people's lives are not taken care of, next time there will be no companies. The deceased cannot keep the companies. Now the goal is to take care of lives. They live on another planet, they keep looking at the market, rather than looking at the problems that we have and that are very basic. An example of this is that care workers do not have sufficient materials to protect their health.

If the feminist movement were in government right now, we would all be sewing face masks. All the production would go to it, it would be included in the companies and it would be studied who could make the production of masks.

Will the Bureau not then have a relationship with the Basque Government?

We have tried to contact Emakunde. We don't know if he'll participate in the table, but we'll be in communication. The feminist movement has been with allies for many years and has worked a lot with the administration, so we have a very good relationship with several. We will therefore try to convey all the work we do. We do not want to hinder it, but help it and build it among all, and I do not know how - because they do not give us the occasion - but we will try to convey information to the government cabinet. They have to take into account what we say.

I think we have to tell the governments that we are not going to stay at home without doing anything. People have been recommended to stay alone at home, limit themselves to individual care; but without having to resort to radical feminist movement, anyone who knows anything about care knows that care is collective. Even if you're alone at home, you've got to build networks, you've got to solve a lot of problems. What is being done at the moment is what in Spanish would be “to monitor and punish” (to watch and punish); in Basque, care is polysemic in this sense. What we see is that not responding to people's needs through fear can lead to powerful collapse. And we're seeing how it's being created.

You have set up the table. What first steps have you marked?

We have a theoretical framework that places the issue of care; it poses the conflict of care in a broad way, beyond the care of the elderly and children. On the other hand, we are developing a diagnosis with all the information we are receiving to determine what are the concrete conflicts that are occurring here in this situation and what are the demands and demands. We will present that document, but we also hope that the agents, trade unions and parties that meet at the table will have the information that we do not have. What we want is for them to bring this information channel to the table as well. That is very important.

Then, the job will be to think about how to publish and transmit all that information and coordinate that work.

And what would be the goals?

The most important objective is political impact. We want to influence. We want to achieve things, we want to bring about change. And we're going to work towards that. In this sense, it is to be welcomed that EH Bildu, Podemos, Steilas, CNT, ESK, LAB, ELA… join immediately.

We are hopeful, at least it is important that the model comes to light, because we have to tell people that they are carrying out other initiatives.

Quarantine does not prevent male violence. Will the theme be one of the axes to be discussed at the table?

The issue of male violence will be the subject of special attention at the table. We have a multitude of people who suffer machista violence, who have not denounced, and are now at home with their aggressors. You can't call them on the phone because the husbands are there. What follow-up will be done to these women if the institutions do not know what their situation is?

The feminist movement has long talked about putting care at the center, and in reporting the intention to create the table, they pointed out that it was the responsibility of the feminist movement to direct the care crisis. How did they decide to create the table?

As events progressed, we began to have great concerns among ourselves. At the time of setting up the Bureau, there have been two very important spaces at the level of the Basque Country: the World Women’s March and the Salda Bada working group, which comes from the Feminist Conference of the Basque Country. These teams took the lead in creating the table, but the process opened immediately. The answer we are receiving is very good, we are doing a great job, gathering the demands, concerns and problems of the movement, of the groups and of other social actors. We collect all the communications that come to us, without distinction between women and men, because they are problems for everyone. We're getting all of this, and people's response is being very good. Moreover, they have asked us to send us information from other places in the Spanish State, and they have also written to us from the United States.

It is a sign that the model has also drawn attention beyond Euskal Herria.

In Euskal Herria it's all very good to create this, but if you push it to other places, it would be great. We believe it can be useful to create these tables elsewhere and promote local work. It is very important to derail all this, to do local work, to pick up what is happening in that particular place, what are the violations of rights that are being committed. We need to diagnose people, to be aware of people's problems and the strategies that are being put in place.

You have spoken from the very beginning of the need for a paradigm shift.

We have been talking about it for years and our main thesis is that we will only emerge from this conflict if we leave aside the neoliberal markets and the heteropatriarchal and capitalist logics and put care at the center, but care is not limited to caring for children and the elderly, it requires a change of model. What we are increasingly saying is that our political conflicts are bio-political. We come from Zaldibar, climate change is there... those are the current conflicts, and if we take into account the spread of this virus, it highlights the bad relationship that has been had with nature. What we then think is that more and more these kinds of conflicts are going to be put at the centre and the management model for them has to be changed. We believe that neoliberal and heteropatriarchal markets must be ruled out. For example: closing all speculative stock exchanges, not negotiating with the simple one. Things like that. We are hearing at all times that the economic crisis is going to come, and what we are advocating at the moment is that with care and life in the centre, this economic crisis can perhaps be avoided. Because we would put other values in the middle. That is the purpose of this table.

While the feminist movement is talking about care, there are some who are talking about wars.

What they have done so far is to use war language, to declare war on an invisible virus, and in that war it becomes a neighbor and an enemy. In some places, neighbours have been invited to denounce people. The war language has fed me up. [Santiago] Abascal is delighted with the fight against the virus. They think it's Rambo, and I warn them that this is not a war, that with the guns they won't fix anything. I believe it is very important to break this war language, to remove police and military from television and statements, and to put agents in place to ensure surveillance.

Because we've known some police attitudes, very dangerous attitudes, that show that agents are working without a gender perspective and without training, that they understand that anyone who goes out into the street is an enemy. We've known the case of a girl who came out to look for some compresses: when the empty street was, she passed the traffic light in red, and the Ertzaines had it on the wall for almost half an hour, asking if she laughed at them. This may be an anecdote, but I think it shows the dimension of the situation. What I'm saying is there are pistols and not masks. Guns are being guaranteed, but we believe that the priority is masks. People must be guaranteed the right to go out and buy clothes without fear, without police persecution. The situation creates enormous fear and increases the conflict.

Of course, we believe that in this situation we have to be at home. But the truth is that people are being identified on the street right now, threatening fines. As regards economic conditions, at a time when we are all scared. Is it time to walk imposing fines? Or is it the time to take care of people? Have you seen Ertzainas taking food to their elders home? They've taken the army out into the street, militarization is brutal, police have guns, but then in Osakidetza they don't have masks or gloves. What are the priorities? In this respect, I believe that this Bureau is necessary.

You have made it clear that the political agency that the feminist movement has will not leave it to anyone.

We cannot leave our political agency in their hands. We cannot give the authorities the whole political agency. At the moment we have no rights, all citizens’ rights have been suspended. We are no longer in a democracy. We have to walk very carefully.

Have you experienced attempts to steal the political agency?

For example, on March 8, the PNV convened demonstrations, invited people to attend the demonstration, their public representatives were in the mobilizations. We feel deeply offended. And then, when this situation has been created, they have not been able to join us. On 8 March everyone was saying how important that day was, how important our struggle is, and on 9 March we no longer existed.

We saw that the theft of the political agency was formidable. Since the feminist movement, we have been talking about all these things, about the bio-eco-political conflict, saying that with this model we have, the collapse comes, and when the collapse comes, they leave us out.

Taking advantage of what you mentioned on 8 March: many have accused the feminist movement of the spread of coronavirus cases by calling for mobilizations.

We are shocked by this. On social media, they say it's our responsibility. How is our responsibility going to be? We were organizing on March 8, we're not members of the government, we don't have the inside information that they have. We ask for permission to do something, and if there is anything, it is the institutions that have to account for it.

It has become clear who our drivers are and what they have put in value so far: money and business, period. And now comes the paradigm shift. And it comes not because we want it, but because the conflicts that are emerging demand it.