He received us at the City Hall of Tudela. His house, let's say, since 1979, since the first municipal elections, is a councillor.

I've always been social movements. That's what I was then, and that's how I continue to be today. At that time, the Leftist Board was established, both in Tudela and in the Ribera itself. As we did, we decided to participate in the municipal elections and, in a meeting, someone gave me my name. “Mila, let it be Mila!” Maybe because I also worked during Franco. Of course, at the time of Franco there was movement in the neighborhoods, but we were not an association of neighbors, but an association of fathers and mothers, for example, a protest against the increase in the shopping basket. Then came those protests to turn them into movements and adopt a form of neighborhood community. So yes, it would be a movement against the shooting polygon, in favor of feminism… It took a lot of me to accept being a candidate, because I was a little girl. In any case, I said yes, that I suppose it was just going to be a legislature. Start the project and it's enough! Not in vain, I'm still here, about to retire. It is my last term of office. In 2015, it's over.

Few women then at all levels of politics…

Yes, it's not like now, because women and men are almost half. In equal parts yes, but the heads are always or in most cases men. In Tudela, for example, all the candidatures that have been and have not been so far since the first municipal elections have been taken up, and only ours has led the women. We have not yet had any mayor here! And when the woman launched the rocket to start the parties, we had no problems anymore. A thousand small trivialities. In Tudela, for example, there is a tradition, the descent of the Angel [Resurrection the Old Habit of Sunday in Tudela], that only the children did. Three or four years ago, girls have also started making Aingeru. There are a thousand things to do and we still have a lot to do.

What do we have of Tudela's Edil for so many years?

Tudela, the capital of the Ribera, has a population of thirty-five thousand inhabitants and, by day, brings together some hundred thousand people. Being a Tudela councillor takes time and interest. Being a councilman has different meanings depending on each one. If you define yourself as a member of an organization, you will act differently. In our case, and in full connection with social movements, we see our work fully aligned, we have to devote more time to work.

“Aligned with social movements.”

I see no other way. If you don't want the institutional machine to choke you, you have to be part of the social movements; if not, it's easy to lose the north. Politics is organised in such a way that the authorities are distinguished from those who receive orders. At first they're a nonsense, for example, to have free tickets for a show. I have no burden on consciousness: Since '79, I've never been to a show with free admission. Never. It looks like stupidity, but that's where "privileges" begin. You have to tell them no. It is not worth doing anything other than the work that falls to the institution. It is a job for officials, and I would say that they do so with a great deal of merit. We, on the contrary, besides institutional work, have another job, it is our innate commitment, to work with social movements. We cannot forget it, we cannot move away from those movements.

That is what you are doing in Tudela, in the City Hall, in tune with the social movements.

In addition to me, Eneko, Patxi and Ana Mari are on it, as we are four on our team. In our work, making a municipal assembly means not only meeting in the municipal plenary, but also with the social movements, analyzing the themes, debating, deciding on their own observations and initiatives and becoming again the city council, to present to the municipal plenary all the decisions. It is time, therefore, and something else: what you do is worth as much as what those who do not work in the institution do, to improve the lives of the people of Tudela, to improve the human relations and infrastructures of this capital, to increase the well-being…

For some years now, citizen participation has gained strength. Themes, at least. It is found in the courses of different universities, unlike other times.

There is no real citizen participation, except for exceptions. I am talking about the experience of Tudela and the Parliament of Navarre. There's no citizen participation, no apex. The participation of someone in a working meeting is not a citizen participation. The City Council, for its part, is the institution closest to the citizen, that physical proximity should lead to real empathy, but that is not the case. I didn't think of it. I, in the last few decades, have seen the opposite.

Quite the opposite?

Yes, the institutions, instead of helping citizen participation, have hindered it. And I think the reason is also clear: politicians are afraid that their plans will be broken. They're afraid. They will theorize you about participation and tell you that you have to regulate this and that, so that there is no confusion. If that were the problem, well, we would come to agreements to make participation real. There are no difficulties, consultations can also be done in a virtual way, but see how participation is regulated, and not believe. Information commissions, closed to the public! When we started in '79, for example, we took care of the health commission. What did we do? We convened all the groups that failed to comply with the norm and were linked to health in one way or another: we worked together in committees.

Not mixed…

And no clutter. You explain it to people and you know how to hear the reasons. The Culture Committee also started working like us. Citizen participation was real. The current rule, for its part, leaves no room for doubt: when the Corporation has analyzed the topics, voted, closed the topic, the question to the citizen: “Does anyone in society want to talk? Does anyone mean anything?” Is that citizen participation? Authorities don't care about citizen participation. It doesn't exist. I've seen the turnout decrease. In the past, in Tudela, municipal corporations were closed to citizenship. Whoever was Jose Mari Lakarra and I were then councillors on our team. We spent three years in all the municipal corporations standing and with the sign hanging from the chest, because the City Hall was closed to the citizens.

If you were given the opportunity to participate today, would you participate?

It's a pity. Society has been deactivated. For many years, attempts have been made to boycott participation, which has deactivated and frustrated society. It's normal! I hope that we will bring together small movements and move forward, but it is not easy. Today, however, and despite the environment around us, we have to put in place mechanisms for real participation and starting with the City Hall. We have to take care of the brasa, the time will come to take away the little fire.
You were burning, others were burning. I have seen works from Castejón to Pamplona, the high-speed train…
Disaster! An island is being built. This railway section will not have continuity... It has no explanation, but those in the government give an explanation for that purpose, saying that, in the future, that train will one day arrive, and that if we have not, we run the risk of being “disconnected”. Therefore, working towards the future, a connection needs to be made. But I believe that, from the very beginning of power, there is much to be said of the people of the present government. Brutal cuts are being made, here and there, and yet they want to spend so much money on that project, so that they do not "disconnect" in the future. It is irrational! I don't know if that will have consequences, but it should. When people go by car or by bus, they're surprised to see the works. The other day, for example, we were going by bus from Tudela to Pamplona, and people weren't taking an eye on the play. These were not very politicized people, they were pedestrians. “And where has this work come from? And where is it going?" they asked me. “No, no, this is not going anywhere. That's where that work is going to stay!"

People didn't know, people don't know.

You don't know, that's the worst. We believe that we all read the newspapers, we all know the data… but that is not the case. I don't know if people will realize what that work is, what is spent in vain.

We have started in Basque, we have made the first words in Basque. Jose Ignazio Lakasta told us that you knew Basque…

José Ignacio [Lakasta] accounts! There are not many of us in Tudela who know Euskera. But the truth is, we're getting more and more. Especially among young people. They are, of course, boys and girls from the ikastola Argia. Those of an age, on the contrary, we are not a crowd, but there is a group that speaks Basque. Among them, some, the ones we've learned, we talk more or less. Others come from outside Tudela. Here's the SKF company, which came from Eibar to Tudela in the early 1970s. Among them, some were Basques.

Do you see any results from the ikastola Argia?

Yes, and not just among young people. You have to take into account the whole environment of the ikastola, a lot of euskaldunes: professors, assistants. I, the ikastola Argia, SKF and the night school would lay the foundations of the vasquism in Tudela. And a woman who had had before the night school, Carmen Añón, who had taught in Euskera in Tudela, in the Casa del Reloj, who was then abandoned [today, from there, they threw the initial rocket of the parties]. Those are, to me, the seeds of the Basque Country in Tudela. And it bears fruit.

You started studying in Basque with Carmen Añón.

At home. Then we went to a public school room. Colegio Elvira Spain. Along with Carmen Añón, Kinku – it was Zinkunegi, no doubt – and we had as teachers a girl, Cristina.

José Ignacio Lakasta told us: “At the time, in Tudela they said that Milagros Rubio had become ‘vasquism’.”

This does not mean anything other than that here the majority culture is Castilian and I too was from that culture. When I started studying in Basque and presented myself as a vasquist, because people did not want to tire themselves; without nuances, their choice was “one or the other”, and I wanted to integrate the two languages of Navarra, the two worlds. In Tudela, many believed that Euskera was not here. They also said to me: “If you weren’t Euskaldun, you would have more votes!”

Ja, ja, ja…

But those are the words! There wasn't a lot of people who would have told me. The worst thing was that they were right. But everyone has their way and I have mine.