Natxo Urkixo (Laudio, 1960) has been a professor of Basque for thirty-three years at the local Vocational Training School. He has conducted Basque Philology and has researched Basque in the area. “I learned Euskera before the Euskaltegis were invented. First, at Llodio College with Fraile Alberto Mugira. I did 1 in Euskaldunization and 2 in Euskaldunization. At that time there was no one in Laudio who taught 3 Euskaldunization. So I started with Juan Mari Iriondo, a City Council translator. We bought grammar books and started in 1975.”

What is the importance of the mayor being Euskaldun and Euskaltzale?

It is important that the mayor is Euskaltzale, that people identify with Euskera. I'm an Euskaltzale, and since I'm a mayor, I haven't had to make any effort to get the city workers to change their language record and all of a sudden speak to me in Basque. I have done nothing, people link me to the Basque country and have acted accordingly. It's been automatic.

How does your profile affect municipal activity?

Not yet. Or less than you would like. I have to sign with a lot of heartache many of the papers that come in Spanish. I look forward to continuing on that. I want to do things slowly, but seriously. If no action is taken, the situation will be prolonged by inertia. A limit must be set. We have to work by sections. It's a very complex job.

Euskera Area Does being inferior to culture benefit or harm language? Are the other departments, areas and sections free from the commitment to use the Basque Country?

On the one hand, we have to distinguish what Euskera is and what culture. The Basque Area should have an impact on its use. Cultural activities can be a resource, a mere instrument. The risk is that if the Basque country is made in the field of culture, it will become an objective to organize activities. Cultural events correspond to the Area of Culture, either in Basque, Spanish or in any language. The Euskera Area aims to use and has to collaborate with the Culture Area and the rest: euskaldunization, motivation, use… of the staff dependent on the City Hall

When will centrality be given to the Basque Country, when will it be brought to the mayor?

I don't know when. But it's possible. In this way, it also gives the mayor responsibility for normalization.

How has Laudio taken the news that the use of Euskera has become more than doubled?

I have not received any objections. It has been a natural step. The fact that I was Euskaldun and Euskaltzale would not have done so. The diglosic situation forces us to go every day to the trenches, to work. You can't believe that everything is done if you think everything is done. We've been Euskaldunifying people for many years, and we believed that people were going to start learning in Euskera, but that's not the case. You have to be on top and act.

In ten years' time, will the use of the Basque language in Laudio be doubled again?

Ten years from now, no. Five years from now! Ja, ja, ja…