Eusko Alkartasuna

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Eusko Alkartasuna, logo

Eusko Alkartasuna (EA) (German Basque Solidarity ) is a Basque , social democratic party in the entire Basque Country (both in Spain and in France ). The chairman of the EA has been Pello Urizar since 2009.

The party's logo shows the letters EA in white on a half-green, half-red oak leaf . The party's nickname is Euskal Sozialdemokrazia (Basque Social Democrats). Elkartasun is the Basque word for solidarity, alkartasun is the dialectal variant from Bizkaia .

The EA was founded in September 1986 by Carlos Garaikoetxea as a split from the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV). The first party congress took place in Pamplona in 1987 and elected Garaikoetxea as the first party chairman. It differs ideologically from the Christian-conservative PNV and describes itself as social democratic , pacifist and non-denominational . EA advocates the independence of the Basque Country.

The youth organization is Gazte Abertzaleak ("Young Patriots").

Election results

On November 30, 1986, the EA entered elections for the first time. In the regional elections in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country , the EA received 180,000 votes in the three provinces.

At the European level, the EA participates in the European Free Alliance (EFA), the gathering movement of European regional parties . As part of this alliance, she is running for European elections together with other Spanish parties, the Chunta Aragonesista , the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya , the Partido Andalucista and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego . In the 2004 European elections , this list connection reached a seat in the European Parliament , which was initially occupied by Bernat Joan i Marí (ERC), after whose departure from parliament in June 2007, EA member Mikel Irujo took it.

In the 2004 elections to the Spanish House of Representatives , the EA received 80,613 votes (0.32%) and won a seat in parliament for the lawyer Begoña Lasagabaster Olazábal (* 1964, Irún ). In the 2008 elections , however, the party lost its seat again. In the Basque Country, it received about 30,000 fewer votes than in 2004 and came down to 4.49% instead of 6.48%.

At the regional level, the EA has formed a government coalition in the Basque Country since 1991 with the PNV under Prime Minister Juan José Ibarretxe (PNV), since 2005 expanded to include EB ( Ezker Batua ), the Basque sister party of the Spanish United Left ( Izquierda Unida , IU). For tactical reasons, the PNV and EA took part in the 2005 regional elections as a list connection and together received 38.6% of the votes and 29 seats, seven of which went to the EA. For the regional elections on March 1, 2009 EA stood alone again. It tried to distance itself from the PNV by adopting a more separatist course and at the same time to address the potential voters that had become free through the ban on the left-wing nationalist parties ANV and EHAK . However, with this strategy it only achieved one seat (3.7% of the vote) and thus fell behind the only remaining legal party of the left-wing nationalist camp, the small Aralar party, which was previously quite important in the political spectrum . Since EB also suffered losses, the formation of a government after the elections was initially open. Through an alliance with the Partido Popular (PP), the socialist Patxi López was elected Lehendakari (President of the Basque Parliament) by the PSE-EE (Basque arm of the PSOE ) on May 5, 2009 , marking the three decades of the Basque nationalists' reign ended.

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