Nationalist politics at the crossroads: The basque nationalist party and the challenge of sovereignty (1998-2014)

Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 2015, Pages 44-62

  Mees, Ludger ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY UPV EHU   (Spain)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTONOMY; PARTY POLITICS; POLITICAL HISTORY; SOVEREIGNTY; STATE BUILDING; TWENTY FIRST CENTURY;

BASQUE COUNTRY [SPAIN]; SPAIN;

EID: 84954285203     PISSN: 13537113     EISSN: 15572986     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13537113.2015.1003487     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Javier Corcuera, La patria de los vascos (Madrid: Taurus, 2001)
2. Antonio Elorza, Un pueblo escogido (Barcelona: Crítica, 2001)
3. Santiago de Pablo and Ludger Mees, El péndulo patriótico. Historia del Partido Nacionalista Vasco (1895–2005) (Barcelona: Crítica, 2005)
4. Ludger Mees, Nationalism, Violence and Democracy: The Basque Clash of Identities (Houndmills-New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
5. The text of the declaration can be consulted on the Web: http://www.es.wikisource.org/wiki/PactodeEstella (accessed 29 Jan. 2015).
6. José Luis de la Granja and Santiago de Pablo, “La encrucijada vasca: entre Ermua y Estella,” in Javier Tusell (ed.), El gobierno de Aznar: Balance de una gestión, 1996–2000 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000), 153-79
7. Ludger Mees, “Visi ón y gesti ón: El nacionalismo vasco democrático 1998–2009,” in Walther L. Bernecker, Diegoíñiguez Hernández, and Günther Maihold, eds., ¿Crisis? ¿Qué crisis? España en busca de su camino (Frankfurt: Vervuert, 2009), 161-205.
8. The secret agreement with the additional clauses was published by El Diario Vasco, 4 May 2000; the letter to the PNV rejecting the additional clauses was presented to the press by the PNV leader Xabier Arzalluz in order to demonstrate that there had never been any “pact” between his party and the ETA terrorists. See La Vanguardia, 4 May 2000.
9. In 1981, 8% of the population of Euskadi expressed “total support” for the activity of ETA, whereas 23% manifested their “total rejection.” In 2012, the figures were 1% and 64%.
10. Eusko Barómetro, Estudio periódico de la opinión p ublica vasca. Series temporales (2014), www.ehu.eus/documentos/1457190/1513114/Series+2014-11.pdf (accessed 29 Jan. 2015).
11. Juan Mari Ollora, Un futuro para Euskadi (San Sebastián: Erein, 1994).
12. A good overview is the article by Xosé M. Núñez Seixas, “Irlanda,” in Santiago de Pablo, José Luis de la Granja, Ludger Mees, and Jesús Casquete, eds., Diccionario ilustrado de símbolos del nacionalismo vasco (Madrid: Tecnos, 2012), 547–62.
13. For a comparative analysis in English, see Kate Flinn, Ideology, Mobilization, and the Nation: The Rise of Irish, Basque and Carlist Movements in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (New York: Palgrave, 2000)
14. Cynthia L. Irvin, Militant Nationalism: Between Movement and Party in Ireland and the Basque Country (Minneapolis / London: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).
15. Spokesmen for the PNV had initiated secret informal contacts with the Herri Batasuna leadership a few weeks before HB’s Ruling Council were imprisoned in December 1997. During these secret meetings, which continued later with the new leadership, the PNV was provided with confidential information, according to which, for the first time in many years, within ETA and its political wing, there was a growing willingness to put an end to violence. For more details, see Mees, Nationalism, 119.
16. See his article in El País, 19 Nov. 2007.
17. Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
18. Leyre Arrieta, Estación Europa: La política europeísta del PNV en el exilio (1945–1977) (Madrid: Tecnos, 2007).
19. The only exception was, at the end of the Spanish Civil War and during the following two decades in exile, the charismatic leadership of the first lehendakari José Antonio Aguirre, which de facto covered both the institutional and the party realm. See Ludger Mees, José Luis de la Granja, Santiago de Pablo, and José Antonio Rodríguez Ranz, La política como pasión: El lehendakari José Antonio Aguirre (1904–1960) (Madrid: Tecnos, 2014).
20. “Ponencia política. Enero 2000”; “Reconocimiento del ser para decidir. III Asamblea General, 15.1.2000. Concreción de la Ponencia Política”
21. “Proceso Político y de Paz en Euskal Herria,” Euzkadi Buru Batzarra, 30.6.2000, www.eaj-pnv.eus/adjuntos/pnvDocumentos/9326_archivo.pdf (accessed 29 Jan. 2015)
22. www.eaj-pnv.eus/documentos/reconocimiento-del-ser-para-decidir_201.html (accessed 30 Jan. 2015).
23. “Elkarrizketarako bake-bidea. Ante el final dialogado de la violencia y la normalización política,” Euzkadi Buru Batzarra, 10 Oct. 2005, www.eaj-pnv.eu/esp/salaprensa_documentos (accessed 29 Jan. 2015).
24. For what follows, see Antoni Segura, Euskadi: crónica de una desesperanza (Madrid: Alianza, 2009)
25. Imanol Murua, El tri ángulo de Loiola: crónica de un proceso de negociación a tres bandas (Donostia: Ttartalo, 2010)
26. Jesús Eguiguren, ETA, las claves de la paz: confesiones del negociador (Madrid: Aguilar, 2011)
27. Fermin Munarriz, El tiempo de las luces. Entrevista con Arnaldo Otegi (Bilbao: Baigorri, 2012)
28. Luis Rodríguez Aizpeolea, Los entresijos del final de ETA: un intento de recuperar una historia manipulada (Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata, 2013).
29. Already in Nov. 2004, the Nationalist Left had launched the so-called “Declaration of Anoeta” in a meeting in San Sebastián, defending publicly the same idea of a two-track negotiation that the PNV presented in the above-mentioned Platform of October 2005.
30. See the text in El País, 29 June 2006.
31. Imaz, as quoted in El Diario Vasco, 27 June 2007.
32. Ibarretxe: “Queremos decidir y decidiremos, en ausencia de violencia.” See his New Year’s message 2004. Source: www.eaj-pnv.eus/blog-noticias/ibarretxe-queremos-decidir-decidiremosausencia_7300.html (accessed 30 Jan. 2015).
33. El Diario Vasco, 15 July 2007.
34. Pleno del Parlamento Vasco. Debate sobre política general. Discurso del lehendakari (28.9.2007) (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2007).
35. In 2008, the Spanish average unemployment rate was 11.34%, in Euskadi it was 6.45%. One year later, the impact of the crisis pushed the Spanish figure to 18.01% and the Basque to 11.04%. Source: Eusko Barómetro, “Encuesta de Población Activa,” www.ine/es/inebaseDYN/epa30308/epainicio.htm (accessed 1 Oct. 2014). Statistics on debt issued by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Hacienda, reproduced in El País, 14 April 2009.
36. In 2001, 39% of the Basques in Euskadi considered “violence and terrorism” as their most important preoccupation. For 26%, it was “unemployment” and for 3%, it was self-government. In the survey of 2013, “violence and terrorism” was no longer mentioned, 65% placed unemployment on the top of their preoccupations, and 4% self-government. See Euskobarómetro, Estudio periódico, 42-45.
37. The Basque PP broke its alliance with the PSE/PSOE criticizing the socialists’ opposition to the policy of social cutbacks applied by the conservative central government, as well as the Basque government’s “lack of toughness” towards the Nationalist Left.
38. Ludger Mees, “Tan lejos, tan cerca. El Gobierno vasco en Barcelona y las complejas relaciones entre el nacionalismo vasco y el catalán,” Historia Contemporánea 37: 557-91 (2008).
39. Santiago Pérez-Nievas Montiel, Modelo de partido y cambio político: El Partido Nacionalista Vasco en el proceso de transición y consolidación democr´ atica en el País Vasco (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, 2002)
40. Leyre Arrieta, “Por los derechos del pueblo vasco: el PNV en la Transición,” Historia del Presente 19: 39-52 (2012)
41. Ludger Mees, “El nacionalismo democrático durante la Transición (1974–1981),” in Rafael Quirosa-Cheurouze y Muñoz, ed., Los partidos en la Transición : Las organizaciones políticas en la construcción de la democracia española (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva), 323-43.
42. C. Jordá, “González pide acabar con los privilegios fiscales de País Vasco y Navarra,” Libertad Digital España, 3 Mar. 2014, www.libertaddigital.com/espana/2014-03-03 (accessed 2 Feb. 2015) and La Vanguardia, 13 June 2013.
43. Sources: EAJ/PNV: Compromiso Euskadi. Programa electoral 2012; “Urkullu aboga por la República y afirma que la Monarquía no se está ajustando a su ‘papel,”’ Deia, 8 Jan. 2014
44. Juan Mari Gastaca, “El PNV busca el Estado propio sin mirar a Cataluña, modelo para Bildu,” El País, 20 April 2014
45. “El Congreso aprueba por 299 votos a favor y 19 en contra la abdicación,” El País, 11 June 2014
46. Juan Mari Gastaca, “Los derechos hist óricos, sin encaje soberanista,” El País, 8 June 2014.