Tolosa, Azpeitia, Ordizia.. As in many other municipalities of Euskal Herria, they have also substantially changed the usual pace of weekly markets in recent weeks, to strictly comply with the anti-Covid-19 measures and to guarantee all the conditions imposed by the Government of Madrid since the state of alarm was decreed. They did so, like salespeople, with lots of sacrifices from shoppers. Sellers often agreed to pick up their products in fewer jobs, drive away shops, strengthen protective measures. The same shoppers had discarded the sweet habit of going from stand to stand and making a tertulia with the salespeople, and they had retired, keeping each other apart, and so on. Sometimes they had also changed their physical location in order to adapt the markets to these measures.

However, the Basque Government, by decree published on 8 April, decreed the suspension of all baserritarras fairs until the state of alarm was over. The complaints and protests of citizens, individually or collectively, the baserritars, the shoppers, the associations, etc., have continued since then, the new beating that the Government of Iñigo Urkullu has given to local farmers and producers, who have been so oppressed for cholera, while leaving the way open to the huge distributions and sales of food products that have long acquired exclusive ownership.

The City Hall of Oñati has taken the step from protest to action, indicating that the fair will be held tomorrow Saturday, 11 April, as promised. The Oñati market will be held on the Blue Sports Runway, on Saturday, at 8:00 and at 13:30 hours. "At 14:00 hours all residents and neighbors will have to be outside," the City Hall note states. Arguing its decision in this way: "The City Hall continues to support the first sector of the locality and keep the Saturdays schedule with the promotion of local and seasonal products. Adapting to the hygiene and safety measures required by the state of alarm we are living, he moved to the Zubiko sports club and limited the number of vendors and clients they are buying at the same time."

From Oñati he has the mayor of EHBildu and he will surely have approved another mayor, Iratxe Arriola, of EA, with the argument he had already advanced in the protest that the competition of the fairs is not from the Basque Government but from each city hall. Therefore, if last week the fair of Oñati was held, it was because it was possible to do with the approval of the Madrid Emergency Office, with the transfer and adaptation and renewal of all security measures.

In the rest of the localities, fairs have also remained open within the narrow boundaries marked by Madrid. We will have to see, for example, whether there is a will to celebrate on the same day the fair of Tolosa, the fair of Zerkausi that our leaders have known so much in Spain and in the world, as a symbol of local food... They are subject to the absurd and painful resolution of the Basque Government, to the detriment of all.

And it will have to be seen whether, knowing how well transparency and political dialogue work in the CAV, at the end of the day the players can sell and buy at the trade fair tomorrow a week.

[Updated at 21:31] Azpeitia City Hall reiterates that it maintains the fair of its locality in the same direction: "After analysing the Basque Government's order to paralyse the markets, the mayor of Azpeitia, Nagore Alkorta, said that the management of the baserritarras sales posts is the responsibility of the municipalities. That is why, as has happened so far, the baserritars and the City Hall have committed themselves to maintaining the sales positions of the primary sector on Tuesdays and Fridays by taking the most 'drastic' measures."