Ibarretxe's Yes to Political Debate

Today at Berria:

Ibarretxe tells the Spanish Popular Party that the political debate will take place

With the Basque Autonomous Community premier away in Mexico the Spanish Government has announced it will be filing an appeal of unconstitutionality against the new Statute, but Ibarretxe has confirmed he will be defending the plan tooth and nail

Edurne Begiristain, Special Correspondent – MEXICO

The very day that the Spanish Government announced it would be filing an appeal against the Statute Proposal of the Government of the BAC [Basque Autonomous Community of Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa], Juan Jose Ibarretxe, the Lehendakari or President of the BAC Government, said he would defend the “legitimacy” of his plan. In a speech during a visit to Mexico’s Basque Centre on Friday night Ibarretxe said that “the political debate will take place despite the appeals.”

In the speech given before about a hundred people who had congregated at the Basque Centre the BAC President vigorously defended his proposal “against the attacks” from Madrid, and fiercely denounced the criticisms and insults directed at him. He added that the aim of the appeal brought by the Aznar administration was to prevent any political debate, but he made it quite clear that he would be staunchly defending the legitimacy of debating the proposal in the BAC Parliament. “It is perfectly legitimate for us to debate this proposal in the BAC Parliament, and I call on anyone who does not agree with it to present his or her own,” said Ibarretxe.

The BAC Government president said he was convinced that the political debate on the proposal would, moreover, “bring an end to the violence” and “usher in a new era of peace and freedom.”

Ibarretxe said he was ready to debate the ideas and contributions of all the parliamentary groups and recalled that the ideas put forward by his government were “open” and “open to debate”. Ibarretxe was of the opinion that the proposal was “democratic” and said that the time for responding with insults was over: “Trying to replace the democratic debate with lies and insults won’t get us anywhere”.

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