Basque Bid Follows European Trend

A plan to give Spain's restless Basque region the right to self-determination and loosen its links with the rest of Spain to ones of "free association" was massively rejected by national parliament in Madrid on Tuesday, with 313 members rejecting the proposal, 29 voting in favor and two abstaining.

The debate took place amid signals from the armed separatist Basque group ETA that it would like to start a dialogue with Spain's central government after decades of political violence to achieve independence for the northern region.

But ETA, held responsible for some 800 political murders and almost four decades of political violence, has not signalled any desire to renounce its violence. There have already been two bomb attacks this month, one on Sunday, just 48 hours ahead of the Madrid parliamentary debate.

Spain's mainstream parties, both ruling Socialists and the conservative opposition, are hostile to the new autonomy plan put forward by Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the Basque moderate regional government leader.

Basque bid includes EU rep

Under Ibarretxe's blueprint, the Basque region would have its own legal system and its own representation abroad in organisations including the European Union, while still adhering to the Spanish government's policies concerning defense, foreign affairs and the economy among others.

Government and opposition alike consider the scheme to be contrary to the letter and spirit of Spain's 1978 constitution, introduced with the restoration of democracy after the death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, and giving sovereignty to the Spanish people as a whole, but not its constituent regions.

European trend of seeking autonomy

The planned Basque devolution is the latest step in the dramatic growth of regionally based parties and movements within European Union states. Many of these movements see the EU as a vehicle for asserting their independence and developing their own industrial strategy.

The incentives for autonomy are great: Encouraging regional competition is official EU policy and a third of the EU budget is directed to "structural funds" handed out on a regional basis.

There are four categories of funds, the most important being those with "objective one" and "objective two" status, which dispense support to economically backward areas, or areas that have recently suffered from economic decline. Other funds relate to infrastructure development and new industries. Newly devolved or autonomous regions are usually eligible for consideration.

Independence the ultimate goal for some

The devolution of power from a central government is seen as the first step to complete independence, a long standing goal of the Basque region. Independence also opens the door to possible future EU membership status and the benefits that brings. This has been the driving force behind the Scottish nationalist movement which elected its first government in nearly 300 years in 1999.

Scottish devolution shifted the power to make domestic policy and laws for Scotland from the unitary United Kingdom parliament to a Scottish parliament, known as the Scottish Executive. The central British government continues to rule over issues such as constitutional reform, foreign policy, defense and the economy.

While independence and European membership may be the incentives for some, in Belgium, however, regionalism is a convenient mask for nationalism. Since 1978, the country has been divided along linguistic and cultural lines between the French and Dutch-speaking areas of Wallonia and Flanders.

Regional rivalry and nationalism

In Flanders, which won a degree of regional autonomy and its own parliament in 1989 followed by its first direct elections in 1995, the extreme right-wing Vlaams Blok (Flemish Bloc) effectively sets the political agenda.

An area with a history of heavy industry, the Flemish parliament wants to free Flemish-based business from the social cost of supporting French-speaking Belgian workers, whose industries are in decline or which have already collapsed. While autonomy is the ultimate goal, the Flemish government wants to secure Flanders for its Dutch-speaking natives.

In Germany, the idea of regional power is a constant discussion topic. Each of the 16 federal states has its own government but accede to the national government on most issues. However, in a bid to increase prosperity, the states continue to lobby for more powers separate from the German government.

Parallels with Northern Ireland

Despite the similarities the Basque region has in terms of these regional objectives, its proposal has more in common with Northern Ireland's problematic pursuit of independence. Both areas have a history of pursuing their goal through violence which has, in turn, undermined increasing attempts at a peaceful resolution through political means.

While the creation of a power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly was reliant on an end to hostilities by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the failure of which meant the suspension of devolved rule, the Basque plan reverses this logic. If the region is given its "right to self-determination," ETA would have less reason to launch attacks. It is this reasoning among other factors that is likely to see the proposal thrown out of the Spanish parliament.