... in strategy setting. It allows the autonomy to be flexible, interacting with Madrid in a more successful manner.
Moreover, the talks between Catalonia and Madrid are still held in a narrow format of face-to-face meetings between the Prime Minister of Spain and the head of the autonomy. At the same time, the Basque Country has already resumed dialogue within the Joint Economic Commission. This is a more inclusive format that enables the sides to cover a wider range of topics.
Currently, the Basque Country’s give-and-take strategy results in smaller but ...
... Nationalist Party, which came out in 2003 with its so-called Ibarretxe Plan (the Political statute of the Community of the Basque Country, named after the former President of the Basque Government Juan Jose Ibarretxe) proposing a free association of the Basque Country with Spain. The situation has become much calmer, however, since ETA declared a permanent ceasefire in October 2011 (although its members did not lay down their weapons or even disband) and the Ibarretxe Plan failed. Ibarretxe was replaced as President of ...
... “Europe of Regions”, which dictates the need to increase self-external relations. It is also clear that the collapse of a number of multinational states (USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia) has strengthened the disintegration processes in Spain.
Basque Country: varieties of separatism
In the Basque Country and Catalonia, an important part of the ideological arsenal of the separatists is played by a myth-making process, artificial designed traditions "of an ancient sovereign nation",...
