This autumn the Batera platform is conducting an audit on the functioning of the first public body in Iparralde that was set up in January 2017. Over the course of October, 150 people from each location have met to comment on both the negative and positive elements that have emerged during the two years of the new institution. In a second phase, hearings have been organised to seek the opinion of qualified people in society and to question the elected officials in the positions of responsibility of the College, including the president. Finally, taking into account all the elements collected at the beginning of December, proposals for improvement will be worked out to move towards more transparent and democratic governance.

The Batera platform fought for years for Iparralde to have its own territorial collectivity. In 2015, and taking into account the attitude and relationship of forces of the French State, the Commonwealth of Iparralde was approved as a first step. However, the platform has not abandoned its previous objective and it is clear that the functioning of this first institution is as necessary as possible to facilitate the next steps. In particular, there have been several polemics in recent months and several complaints have been made by the police. It is a break between the coast and the interior. There are people who plead for centralization, for powerlessness, others who believe that instead of working on local political dynamics, technocratic policies are being developed. The poles of the territories provided for in the institutional architecture have not yet been structured. The tax pact agreed between the electorate has been broken with the decision to increase the transport tax since this year. There is talk of a scant agreement and that things have been done slowly.

A number of sectors that mobilised in setting up the institution have now spoken out loud and quickly, highlighting all the mistakes made. And you would surely be glad if the college failed. In public space it cannot leave them the monopoly of the word. It is also up to the Batera platform, which defended and mobilized the people in favor of the College, to take the floor, showing a critical view with objectivity and necessity, in a constructive spirit. To this end, it has proposed to the Iparralde society an exercise of exchange of views, diagnosis and the construction of proposals on the way in which the College operates. The assessment of the newly created entity is therefore sound and necessary. Just as the first institution in the North was achieved through an attentive and mobilised society, the stimulus of society will be the main guarantee of further progress towards the future.