Basque Country
Basque Country: EH Bildu on the 2014 European election
Spain: Left unity elusive in European poll pre-selections
"Before the crisis:
Sortu and Basque left nationalism’s strategic relaunch
For more coverage of the Basque struggle, click HERE. For more on Spain, click HERE.
By Dick Nichols
March 5, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Nearly 10 years after the Spanish high court outlawed its previous political organisations, Basque left nationalism has finally given birth to a new legal party—Sortu (“to create” or “to be born” in Basque). The new arrival is a powerful progressive force for Basque independence—socialist, feminist, ecologically aware and staunchly internationalist.
Its goal is an independent socialist Basque-speaking state that unites the three northern Basque regions in the French department of Pyrenees Atlantiques with the four southern Basque regions covering Navarra and Euskadi (the Basque Autonomous Community) in the Spanish state.
Basque Country: Movement for sovereignty and socialism on the rise
For more coverage of the Basque struggle, click HERE.
United Left national convention: ‘This is the Spanish SYRIZA!’
[For more reports and discussion on political developments in Spain, click HERE.]
By Dick Nichols, Madrid
January 4, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- On the last day of the 10th federal convention of the Spain’s United Left (Izquierda Unida, IU), Juan Peña, young IU organisation secretary for the Castilian town of Valladolid, summed up his view of the impact of the indignado (15M) movement on the IU, one of the oldest broad left formations in Europe: “15M brought IU good news and bad news. The good news was that our programmatic proposals hit the mark, shared by the people who poured into the streets. The bad news was that the people thought that these proposals were new, their own.”
Basque Abertzale Left: Towards peace in the Basque Country
On November 14, 2012, reports the weekly news bulletin of the Abertzale Left nº101,15,000 people demonstrated in Bayonne under the slogan of “Hurbildu bakera, Giza eskubide guztiak, euskal preso eta iheslariak Euskal Herrira” (On the path to peace, all human rights, Basque prisoners and refugees to the Basque Country). The biggest demonstration in demand respect for the rights of prisoners and refugees to ever occur on the streets of Bayonne. The demonstration was led by the families of prisoners who carried photos of their loved ones.
By Gorka Elejabarrieta, head of the International Relations Department of the Basque Abertzale (Patriotic) Left
Spain: As two-party system breaks down, what prospects for a ‘Spanish SYRIZA’?
Demonstrators march to the Spanish parliament against austerity measures announced by the government in Madrid, September 26, 2012.
By Dick Nichols, Barcelona
October 28, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The economic, social and territorial crisis in the Spanish state is morphing into a crisis of the two-party system that has provided Popular Party (PP) or Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) administrations for the last 30 years. Basque, Catalan and Galician nationalist forces (left and right), and the United Left (IU) and Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) parties are gaining support. However, only a brave gambler would put serious money on the future evolution of this crisis. While the two-party set-up has been severely weakened, a replacement party with enough popular support to impose a different solution has yet to emerge.
Europe: Greece, Spain, Portugal – the arc of resistance to austerity hardens
On September 25-26-27, 2012, up to 50,000 demonstrators tried to encircle the parliament, calling for the resignation of the government and d