A New Political Status for the Basque Country?

Abstract

The Basque Country can be said to have entered a new post-violence political scenario in 2012. In this context, a new opportunity for debating about the political status of the Country re-emerges. Electoral behavior and additional social evidence show that the accommodation of the Basque Country within the current Spanish constitutional system is far from being settled. While Catalonia claims for recognition as an independent nation, the debate about the future political relationship between the Basque Country and Spain will be a central feature during the mandate of the Basque prime minister, newly elected in 2012. However, given the different positions of the main political families of this fragmented society, the possibility for a broad agreement that could also be driven through the current constitutional system seems very remote, and major future developments in this field remain uncertain and unlikely. Such a process would face two significant obstacles. On the one hand, there is the deep political fragmentation and distrust among the main political forces in the Basque Country, whose electoral expression seems to remain significantly stable. On the other hand, there is the resistance of Spanish society to recognize or accomodate asymmetry at the constitutional level.

Keywords

• Basque Country
• self-determination
• sovereignty
• autonomy
• self-government
• right to decide