Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country of 1979
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The Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country of 1979 (
The statute was meant to encompass all the historical provinces inhabited by the
The Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country retained though in its wording the spirit of the original blueprint, namely allowing the necessary means for the development in liberty of the Basque people, while now limited only to the western Álava, Gipuzkoa and Biscay provinces. The possibility of Navarre joining in is anyway emphasized and provisioned for, insomuch as they are identified as Basque people, should that be their will.
It established a system of
(as a right and duty) are official languages.The equal representation of the provinces regardless of actual population was a wink to Alava and Navarre, the least populated and least prone to Basque nationalism of the provinces. However the Navarrese society seems content with its current Amejoramiento del Fuero'
The Ibarretxe Plan was a proposal to revise the statute so as to amplify Basque autonomy put forward by the ruling Basque Nationalist Party.
Earlier statutes
Up to early 19th century, the Basque districts maintained a great degree of self-government under their charters (they came to be known as the Exempt Provinces), i.e. they held a different status from other areas within the Crown of Castile/Spain, involving taxes and customs, separate military conscription, etc.), operating almost autonomously.
After the
Attempts at a unified Basque statute including Navarre were repeatedly postponed until the occasion seemed to have arrived at the onset of the Second Spanish Republic with a statute for the four Basque provinces. A draft Basque Statute was approved by all four provinces (1931), but Carlists were divided, and the 1931 draft Statute of Estella did not achieve enough support, against a backdrop of heated controversy over the validity of the votes, as well as allegations of strong pressures on local representatives to tip the scale against the unitarian option (Assembly of Pamplona, 1932).
Following the works started for the Basque Statute, another proposal was eventually approved by the government of the Spanish Republic, already awash in the Civil War, this time only including the provinces of Gipuzkoa, Biscay and Álava. Its effectivity was limited to the Republic-controlled areas of Biscay and a fringe of Gipuzkoa.
After the surrendering of the Basque Army in 1937, the statute was abolished. However, Francisco Franco allowed the continuation of a limited self-government for Alava and Navarre, thanking their support for the Spanish Nationalist uprising.
It is on the republican statute and the Alavese institutions that the current Statute of Gernika takes its legitimacy.
Sources
- Iban Bilbao, The Basque Parliament and Government, Basque Studies Program Newsletter, Issue 27, 1983.
- IVAP (Basque Govt's admin agency), The Statute of Autonomy, the basic institutional instrument regulating the Basque Country.