ETA and nationalism: the exodus of 180.000 Basques

In the second CEU-CEFAS report: “The Basque exodus as a consequence of ideological persecution” we analyze the consequences of ETA terrorism and exclusionary nationalism at the demographic, economic and social level in the Basque Country.

• From 1976-1977 onwards, the Basque Country began a process of demographic collapse with a profound negative impact. The region that has aged the most in Spain since 1976 is the Basque Country, due to the enormous drop in fertility –which is considerably higher than the national average– and to the Basque exodus.
• The result is that, in net figures, some 180,000 native Spaniards have left the Basque lands between the beginning of 1977 and 2022 for political reasons. This loss of some 180,000 people –around 9% of the 1977 Basque population– actually implies an additional demographic loss of several tens of thousands more inhabitants –the children and even grandchildren that many of those who left would have had in the Basque Country. The impunity of the ETA killings, protected by the silence in the streets and the approving comments of the sympathisers from other parties, would be the main cause of the beginning of the exodus.
• The establishment of a nationalist model at the political and social level would also have economic consequences. At present, the economic anomaly of the Basque Country, as Spain’s second region in terms of per capita income after the Region of Madrid, is that it contributes far less in fiscal terms to the Central Government than the value of what it receives from the State, and enjoys far greater public funding per inhabitant for comparable public services than the fifteen Autonomous Regions under the common tax regime.
• There is general disappointment with the Basque Government for its lack of attention to the situation and needs of the victims of terrorism and other exiled people, which contrasts with the attention paid to the descendants of Basques living outside Spain for reasons other than terrorism (mainly economic emigration to America), who have the right to vote in Basque elections, according to Article 7.2 of the Statute of Guernica.
• Despite the disappearance of the most violent expression of nationalism, the Basque Government led by the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) has not created the conditions –educational, linguistic and social– to facilitate their return. The truth is that they want them out in order to consolidate their exclusionary project without any hindrance.
• The elections held in the Basque Country since 1978 have never taken place in a climate of freedom, but under persecution and threat. These circumstances have prevented the non-nationalist alternatives from competing on equal terms. They have not been able to campaign normally, nor to have native candidates or to count on auditors and proxies. The census has been altered, definitively, by ETA terrorism and nationalist pressure.
• The Spanish Government, apart from the respective indemnifications, has not ensured the compensation to which the victims of terrorism are entitled. It has not taken any measures to give them back the rights they were deprived of. Not only have 379 killings gone unpunished, but their disenfranchisement has ensured results for nationalism that it would not have achieved without the existence of terrorism.
• The decapitalisation caused –and not only of a moral nature– is evident. The descendants of the people killed will not return to the Basque Country. The flight of talent and entrepreneurs and the loss of attractiveness of the Basque Country as a land of opportunities is demonstrated by an indisputable fact: in 1975 the Basque Country accounted for 7.80% of the national GDP, today it barely amounts to 5.90%. The new generations of descendants of the murdered and extorted people are aware of the lack of institutional interest in explaining what the existence of terrorism has meant for Spain. They have not heard the testimony of any victim during their school years. The education system and the level of demand for the Basque language do not guarantee a brilliant professional career in the Basque Country. Those who remain will probably seek their future abroad and those who left will not return.
• EH Bildu, together with ERC, has become a party of great political prominence due to the PSOE-Unidas Podemos coalition’s dependence on it in the national executive. On the other hand, the departure of 10% of the total population of the Basque Country for reasons of discrimination and threats has not been recognized or integrated, thus leading to the elimination of Basque political plurality. The consequence is the consolidation of the Basque community as a national element entitled to a process of self-determination, at the expense of a portion of Basque society, driven into permanent exile by the discriminatory context created by ideologised autonomous institutions.