The Official Gazette of Navarre published on Tuesday the decree calling for the foreign elections on 26 May. When it comes to assessing the legislature, lehendakari has been “satisfied”: “We have passed four budgets and over a hundred laws. We have laid the foundations for a profound change that requires continuity in the next legislature.”

Barkos has stressed that stability has been one of the hallmarks of the legislature, even though the government is made up of four coalitions. “Stability seems to be achieved by itself, but there is a lot of work behind it. It cannot be forgotten that in these four years, in Spain they have had four different governments,” he explained. In his opinion, “loyalty and responsibility” have prevailed among the forces of change, “and despite the discrepancies, it has been well managed”.

The lehendakari considers that the most tense moment in the painting was the eviction of the Gaztetxe Marvels: “We wanted a negotiated and agreed solution, but on the other hand there was no will for it,” he said. “The Government acted in the general interest and the tools to be used in these cases are not easy.”

The “noisy” discourse of the opposition

One of the issues that led to disagreement in the quadripartite has been language policy. In the words of Barkos, “the Law of the Basque Country has not changed because there is no majority for that, because it had not been agreed with Ezkerra from the beginning, because it made it clear that he did not want a new law that would match the whole territory.” In any case, he has highlighted the progress that has been made in this area, especially in the field of education.

Lehendakari criticized the discourse of the political and media right against Euskera: “They wanted to spread the discourse of taxation, especially in the Ribera, but that’s a false idea.”

Barkos believes that the political and media opposition in general has used a “loud” speech. But he adds that this noise has not altered society. As an example of this, you mentioned the demonstrations. In this sense, it has shown its "utmost respect" to the citizens who have gone out into the street against the Law of Symbols, the Basque Country and Skolae. However, he stressed that these demonstrations had "little force" against those carried out against the case of Alsasua.

Election optimist

For the next legislature, the “first option” of lehendakari Barkos is to repeat the table, “adding more strength if possible”. Asked about the veto of the PSN to EH Bildu, he has offered a brief and expressive answer: “That’s a PSN problem, not mine.”

As for the Navarra Suma coalition, Barkos has made just one thought: “I fear that UPN has so easily opened the door of the foral parliament to a force like Citizens, which is against the outbreaks.”

The "barbarity" of Casado

Lehendakari referred to the unemployment figures recorded last Tuesday: 146 fewer unemployed in the foral community were registered in March. According to Barkos, the data is “good”, although it does not reach the improvement of other months, “but in that it has to see if the Holy Week comes sooner or later”. In any case, he stressed that since the beginning of the legislature, unemployment has fallen by 10,000 people: "The important thing is that this trend is the most important," he added.

As for the transfer of traffic, Barkos said that the Government of Navarre has done "all the work" to get it there, but does not know whether the Sanchez Executive will be able to deliver on his word. In this regard, yesterday, Pablo Casado said that, in any case, the Spanish National Police and the Civil Guard will always have to be above the autonomous security forces. For Barkos, this is a "barbarism", as the Spanish police associations have acknowledged. “Married is provoking, he will know why.”

This news has been published by Euskalerria Irratia and we have brought it to ARGIA thanks to the CC-by-sa license.