The Constitutional Court has not respected Municipal Law, although this has not raised any problem in the Basque Country

• The Basque Country strengthens its position as a European Innovative Region

The spokesperson for the Basque Government and Minister for Culture and Language Policy, Bingen Zupiria, appeared at the usual press conference after the Governing Council meeting, together with the Minister for Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment, Arantxa Tapia. 

On the ruling of the Constitutional Court (CC) on Municipal Law, the spokesperson Bingen Zupiria specified that the Executive Council does not know what the sentence of the CC is, but it does know that “a press release that the Constitutional Court has been published”. In this regard, he pointed out that the press release specifies that there has been interpretation of the law, since, according to the press release, “priority is given to the use of the Basque language in the municipal councils” and, in the words of the councillor, “that is not so”.

Zupiria pointed out that article 6, the one in question, in its first and third points, makes very categorical statements: “Basque, together with Spanish, are the official languages and we will give service in the chosen language, In addition, Basque is promoted as a work tool”. “The law gives the same official status to both Basque and Spanish,” he said.

The spokesperson stressed that the Basque Government has made and still makes a clear commitment in its Government Programme to the promotion of the Basque language as a working language as well as to defend the linguistic rights of citizens and promote the use of the Basque language.

The Minister for Culture and Language Policies recalled that the Law on Local Authorities was approved in 2016 by the Basque Parliament with an absolute majority and in it these issues were consolidated. He also pointed out that there was also a risk that the Spanish Government would take him to the Constitutional Court, but an agreement was reached so that there was no appeal.

Likewise, Bingen Zupiria stressed that since 2016 there have been no incidents at the municipal level in relation to the application of this law. “This law has made a political agreement in the Basque Parliament, an agreement between the Basque Government and the Government of Spain and has been used in an orderly fashion in municipal institutions,” he added.

“I would not understand if the Constitutionality of a text created in Basque were called into question and neither would the same be done with Spanish,” he concluded.

RIS 2023

The Minister for Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment, Arantxa Tapia, presented the result of the “Regional Innovation Scoreboard (RIS) 2023” report, recently published by the European Commission that measures the performance of regional innovation systems in Europe, and is considered as the main international reference in this area. According to the ranking of innovation in the European regions in 2023, it improves the situation of the Basque Country among the regions of high innovation, maintaining its qualification as a hub of regional excellence. “The Basque Country is among the European regions of “High Innovation”, after having grown its innovative performance by 11.5% since 2016”, said the councillor.

AGREEMENTS OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL

As usual, the spokesperson, Bingen Zupiria, provided information on other issues discussed in the Governing Council meeting, including the following:

The Government has given the green light to the 2023 call for applications for grants to Basque Centres outside our Community and to Basque centres of federations and confederations. In total, almost one million euros will be allocated to help support the activities of this group. Most of the aid will be used to support annual programmes or specific actions at the Basque Centres, mainly in the fields of youth, women, external image and communication, historical memory, current expenditure and operation. 

At its meeting today, the Governing Council also approved the decree that regulates the updating of the official models, materials and documentation to be used in the elections to the Basque Parliament. Among the main news in this Decree is the adaptation of the texts to a more inclusive language. As Zupiria explained, the Government thus tries to promote the modernisation and transparency of the elections to the Basque Chamber, analysing and adapting, among other aspects, the language of the materials to be used in the elections from a gender perspective. In addition, the text includes new developments related to legislative changes, such as, for example, a new model of downloadable ballot which helps citizens living abroad to vote and the possibility of presenting arguments to the Electoral Board's appointments electronically.

The Government has today approved the legislative decrees necessary to update and harmonise the Basque version of six laws, so that the equivalence of the two language versions (Basque and Spanish) is guaranteed. This measure aims to avoid problems of legal uncertainty which could cause inadequate wording from a linguistic point of view. The six laws that require small linguistic updates in their versions of Basque are from the 80s and 90s.

Through the Department of Education, the Government has approved to send out a call for aid to the centres agreed within the framework of the agreements for the maintenance of employment and the rejuvenation of the teaching staff, in the face of the foreseeable demographic decline for the next years. The financial endowment of this call is almost 14 million euros. The spokesperson also indicated that the main reasons for this call are to maintain the employment of teachers and to facilitate the generational replacement of teachers.

As in previous years, the Government has today approved the call for subsidies related to inclusive urbanism. The aim of these grants is to incorporate the gender perspective in municipal and urban planning and, among other things, to guarantee the equality of men and women regarding access to the resources and equipment of the territory and increase the safety of women in public spaces.

In the field of health, today's Governing Council has been informed that the Minister of Health has approved the Order that will convene research projects on Multiple Sclerosis with funds raised through EITB Maratoia 2022.

Linked to the Department of Culture and Language Policy, on the one hand, the Government has agreed to approve a grant of 150,000 euros for the entity "Arabako Ikusentzunezko SLU" to incorporate content in Basque on social networks and platforms such as Spotify through the project called "Tximist"; and, on the other hand, it has also been decided to allocate 350,000 euros to promote the use and reading of the library services of the Basque Public Reading Network.