Pig starvation dreams of acorns, says the old saying, and the pig will soon eat a kilo of acorns, although to satiate it it would need ten. The Basque sector in Navarre has long been hungry, waiting for other policies that brought different budgets. But their hopes had faded. In 2015, the Government of Navarra allocated a budget of EUR 2.1 million to Euskarabide, and this year EUR 4 million.

The percentage increase is not a joke, it is almost 100%, but when the base starts from such small quantities, it rarely remains. To understand what we are talking about, for example, the public administrations of the Basque Autonomous Community allocated EUR 154 million in 2014 to the promotion of the Basque Country. With UPN and PSN the Basque cultural activity in Navarre has always been in trouble, without public recognition and with drowning, but the situation of recent years has broken marks.

That is why political change was essential for survival and when it has arrived, dreams have remained in the limbo of the Navarros skies. Compared to the previous situation, with the new government the Basque has had a very important leap in recognition and public and institutional presence, but not in money, and like government officials, the teachers of IKA and AEK and their families, for example, have to bring to their voice what they have to bring.

Despite the euro, EUR 2.9 million out of the 4 that Euskarabidea will receive this year are needed to maintain its structure. What remains will be distributed as follows: Euskaldunization-literacy, AEK and IKA (€400,000); municipalities (€300,000); written and on-line media in Euskera and radios (€290,000).

The Communication Service of the Government of Navarra will earmark €150,000 for audiovisual production in Basque. A total of EUR 1,250,000 will therefore be allocated to prizes this year. It is a great deal compared to EUR 376,000 in 2015, or to EUR 147,000 in 2014. Totally inadequate to reach minimum dignity. The call will be made these days and will be made before the light is known.

In view of these last numbers, it is evident that the Basque Country came from a squeeze in Navarre. In their childhood, the years 2000 and 2001 were the most prosperous, from then on they declined. The Government of Navarra approved in 2002 the new Foral Decree of the Vascuence, which would place the Basque Country in a state of siege as a foral weapon of the twenty-first century. In the data published by the Council, for example, Euskarabidea received EUR 3.1 million from the 2009 budgets and EUR 2.3 million in 2012. As a result of the solitude of UPN, the budgets for the next three years were extended, but the money allocated to Euskarabide fell to 2.1 million.

Barcina above the law, below the needs Barkos

In the last years of UPN, things were incomprehensible to the understanding of citizenship. For example, Euskaldunization-literacy had a budget of 245,000 euros in 2013, 2014 and 2015, but it never patrolled them. “Yes, we have technical problems,” UPN representative Alberto Catalunya replied to the representatives of IKA and AEK. But the money didn’t come and the next time the director of Euskarabidea was going to tell them if “Parliament could move a little”… The fact is that Yolanda Barcina left the Government of Navarra spending money for Euskaldunization and literacy in other things. The new government of Uxue Barkos finally raised €131,000 for Euskaldunization and literacy by the end of 2015. AEK and IKA ask the government for EUR 600,000 more than they could not perceive in the three years of the resolution.

The Council of Social Entities of the Basque Country has strongly criticised this year’s budgets and therefore considers that they should exceed 2% of Navarre’s general budgets. Current figures are far from this barrier: The 2014 one was 0.05, the 2015 one was 0.06 and the 2016 one was 0.1.

Therefore, from the point of view of Basque cultural activity, it would need a budget of EUR 8 million in 2017 to address with dignity the minima needed by the Basque country. Euskaldunization and literacy in Navarre has already informed Euskarabidea that they will need EUR 2.2 million by 2017. In the amount allocated to languages, there are figures that are unbearable in the budgets of the Government of Navarra, one of them is indicated in the report drawn up by the Council at the end of 2015: In the distribution of money from the Ministry of Education, while awarded to the “Department of the Basque Country” 477,837, 525,040 euros are allocated to “English and foreign languages” – English is not, apparently, a foreign language.

Among the curiosities is also what will happen with the media and the written radios of Navarra. They have so far received a subsidy from the Basque Government, but by 2016 it will not finance them, as the Government of Navarra will distribute theirs. By contrast, the amount they will receive from the latter (€300,000) will be less than what they have received so far from the Basque Government.