The Basque Country, a country on the move
The political conflict and media reaction we suffered during the last legislature have, on many occasions, concealed the fact that this country is on the move. What became of the predictions some people made, namely, that we would bring economic ruin if we dared to debate the current framework of coexistence?
Fortunately, today we can declare with pride and satisfaction that we have made great progress in this has been shown by all the economic and social indicators recorded over recent years. Today, our society is better prepared, more modern and better balanced than at the beginning of the last legislature.
I will provide some facts and figures to illustrate this point.
Between 2001 2004, the Basque Country has grown, in terms of per capita income, twice as fast as Europe, exceeding the income levels of the European Union and gaining the number one spot in the Spanish state in terms of available income.
We have attained the highest employment levels in our history. According to the latest data published by Eustat for the first quarter of 2005, in the Basque country 936,000 people are in employment and our unemployment rate is the lowest for the last 25 years, standing at 7%, in other words, 2 percentage points below the European average and 3 points below the average for the State.
Moreover, and for the first time, the number of women currently in unemployment is lower in absolute terms than their male counterparts.
Our life expectancy is the second highest in the world, just behind Japan.
More than 80 percent of young Basque men and women between the ages of 20 and 24 complete their secondary or university education, which means that this country occupies fifth place in the European education level ranking.
Although we still have a long way to go, we are also a more balanced and united society. In this regard, I am not going to provide comparative indices with the State in the field of health, government-sponsored housing, co-operation programmes, support for immigration, etc. I will only mention, in order to illustrate my case, that our society is a reference model for programmes designed to combat marginalisation. The Basque Country was the first to recognise a basic income by law as well as emergency social aid for individuals who encounter difficulties in finding employment. Over the last four years, this social aid has increased significantly, not only in quantitative terms, increasing from 69 million euros in 2000 to 138 million euros in 2004, but also qualitatively, rising from 61% of the minimum interprofessional salary in the year 2000 to 84% this year, 2005.
Lastly, I will add that in 2004, the Basque Country was visited by a record number of tourists, 1,750,000. This means that, due to our exceptional quality of life, this country is becoming increasingly attractive for visitors, keen to discover and enjoy what we have to offer.
In conclusion, it is true that we have made great progress, but it is also clear that we still have a long way to go in all areas. Because in a modern society, such as the Basque Country, self-esteem is as important as a capacity for self-criticism in order to continue facing new, new goals.
Social rapprochement and technological rapprochement, our collective objectives for this legislature.
During the last legislature, we undertook to achieve agreements in income and employment with the European Union, and not only have we achieved this but we have exceeded our own expectations. This has been possible not only because of the successful policies of the government and Basque institutions but also thanks to the solidarity and joint efforts of the whole of Basque society. We have all contributed to this success.
However, we should not forget that the successes attained in the past and do not represent a guarantee of future well-being. The world is changing quickly. We are witnessing a profound transformation not only in the world of business, but also in social aspects. Over the last five years there have been major changes in economic, cultural and personal relations, brought about by the development of new technologies and communications networks.
At a world level, we must accept the challenge of the new information and knowledge society that affects not only the competition between companies and multinational firms, but also the relationships between people.
The Basque country must make, therefore, a collective effect as a society to adapt quickly to the new changes and to continue moving forward in order to improve the social welfare of each and every one of the inhabitants of the Basque Country. People are the key to this new scenario. Trained people and people who are well cared for and looked after.
For this reason, our objectives for this legislature are clear and well-defined: to achieve technological and social rapprochement, and to project an image of a united country, among the top ten countries in the world on the human development index.
These are our collective objectives. To achieve this, we wish to offer Basque society a government of progress. A project at the service of individuals, of all individuals; a project to promote sustainable development and a project to open our country to the world.
I.1) A Project at the service of individuals, of all individuals.
The central theme of our project of government is the individual. All individuals. No one need be excluded from the benefits of economic growth. We are going to work in order to construct a united and balanced society in which the market is at the service of individuals, because the important thing is not growth rate but the commitment to ensure that we are all capable of advancing together, without imbalances.
We believe in ethical progress that places individuals at the centre of economic development. With this objective, we are going to strengthen all those social programmes and policies that contribute to guaranteeing the right of each and every one of individuals in our society to enjoy the right to a decent life, access to employment, to education, health and to housing as well as to social protection and cultural integration.
In short, we are going to build a social model of well-being that will be a reference model in the Spanish State and in Europe.
To do this, we will articulate a policy of social integration based on two major areas of activity:
a) Solidarity and social progress
b) Equality and cultural development
a) Solidarity and social progress, the first pillar of the social construction of the Basque country.
With regard to this first area of activity, we will promote those public services and policies that have greater repercussion on integration and on improving the quality of life of our people, by developing specific complimentary programmes for especially vulnerable groups.
We do not understand solidarity as a passive exercise of charity, but as the application of an active strategy designed to achieve effective integration on job markets and the social integration of all individuals, especially the most underprivileged.
With this aim, our first concern will be employment. We have made progress in the creation of jobs and we are on a par with Europe with regard to unemployment rates.
Now we are determined to work towards stable employment and a respect for workers' rights. To do this, we are going to present a new Institutional Employment Plan, the priority aims of which will be the creation of jobs, a reduction in temporary work contracts and an increase in job stability, which will include corrective measures to provide incentives for stable employment and the conversion of temporary contracts into indefinite contracts.
Specific programmes of positive action in favour of groups who experience the greatest difficulty in finding employment, as well as measures to conciliate professional life and the life of the family, are also included.
Employment contracts must guarantee sufficient levels of job protection and security. To do this, a New Safety and Health in the Workplace Master Plan will be drawn up with the aim of reducing accident rates to below the averages for Spain and Europe.
In the socio-employment area we are going to favour a joint reflection with economic and social agents on the current operation of existing conciliation channels in order to increase their efficiency as instruments to encourage social dialogue in order to facilitate social agreements in areas such as stability, productivity, training, and job security and the creation of employment.
We are also going to develop the Basque Employment Law in order to create adequate employment policies. After 26 years of non-compliance, we cannot end this chapter without demanding, once more, that the Spanish State transfer active employment policies to the Basque Country, as an essential instrument in this Government's work to develop an overall strategy in favour of employment.
On the other hand, we are going to consolidate the current Health System as a free, universal and quality public service, configuring this as a basic instrument for social cohesion and one of the fundamental pillars of our welfare state. For this purpose, the new Strategic Plan of socio-health care will be passed. Social inequalities in health care will be reduced by 25%. Surgery waiting lists will be managed with greater efficiency. Health and pharmaceutical research will be fostered. The progressive use of generic medicine will be encouraged and new health infrastructures will be created or enhanced.
Efforts to promote a public housing policy will be especially significant during this legislature in view of the fact that access to a decent home is at this time one of the main social problems for many social groups, especially among young persons. For this reason, I can assure them that we are not only going to continue our leading position in the Spanish State in this field but we are going to strengthen even more our active policy of promoting land and housing.
With this aim, we propose to increase the budget for the Housing Master Plan, which will stand at 200 million euros by the end of this legislature.
Along these lines, our first measure will be to submit to this House the Land Law White Paper, which was developed and agreed upon during the last legislature. The Government Sponsored Housing Law White Paper will also be passed. Likewise, through the new Housing Master Plan, the promotion of public housing will be increased 50% and the rental system will be promoted through the mobilisation of empty homes, through the Bizigune Programme. In turn, a special Apartment Plan will be fostered for elderly persons, as well as the regeneration of housing in the degraded areas, the refurbishment of old housing, and environmental sustainability in the application of new technologies in the sector.
The fight against poverty and insertion into job markets of persons who suffer social marginalisation will be another of our priority objectives for this legislature. Our undertaking is to develop a Basque Inter-institutional Insertion Plan based on two basic rights: the right of underprivileged persons to social aid and the right of the beneficiaries of these benefits to insertion in the job market.
To do this, the basic income will be consolidated by adapting this to the development of the Minimum Inter-professional Salary, emergency social aid will be increased and promoted, as a priority measure, the so-called third pillar of the Fight against Poverty Plan, in other words, insertion into the job market, especially through the Auzolan programme, the creation of job insertion companies and the fostering of social employment, in collaboration with Provincial and Town Councils. Our aim is to promote this third level by progressively increasing the funds assigned to the insertion of the most underprivileged into the job market, and to reach a figure 50% higher than the current amount by the end of this legislature.
With regard to the social emergency aid, this will be strengthened, and will also include housing subsidies.
Parallel to these measures, we will develop a new Law to integrate the current regulations on social exclusion and the social rights charter in order to obtain the progressive universalisation of the basic income and its adaptation to the new units of family coexistence. Likewise, the Social Services Law will be adapted to establish a catalogue of social services and benefits and to improve its coordination at all three institutional levels.
In addition to these overall initiatives, in the area of solidarity and social progress, policies will be developed, aimed at responding to the problems of specific groups. For this purpose, the 5th Drug Dependency Plan will be put into motion, the incorporation of handicapped persons into the job market will be fostered within the framework of the Inter-institutional Plan of Care and Promotion of Handicapped Persons; and public services designed for elderly dependent persons through the Inter-institutional Plan of Care of Dependent Persons will be promoted.
A new Inter-institutional Plan of aid for families, which contains the measures necessary for their Care and Promotion and a Family Medicine Law White Paper will be developed to help families overcome situations of conflict.
The Basque Immigration Plan will also be promoted and extended and an integral policy of support for the young will be developed through an overall strategy that will focus especially on the training, insertion into job market, housing and access to culture of young persons.
I should like to end this section, by mentioning the care we are going to provide to young children and adolescents through the constitution of a body to defend and monitor the rights of young children and adolescents and develop a law for the care of young children, which was passed recently.
b) The pillar of equality and cultural development
The second premise on which we are going to base our actions in order to make people the central theme of the Government's actions, will be its policies relating to equality, education and culture as the bases of a true government of social progress.
We have advanced a great deal in the area of equality, and the composition of this House is eloquent proof of what I am saying. The recent approval of the Basque Equality Law of February 18 was a historic milestone. This is, possibly, the most important Law of all those passed during the 26 years of our self-government. I am convinced that the future of our society lies in our being able to share, respect and recognise the essential role of women in all walks of life.
In this sense, I repeat my personal commitment to the full development of the Equality Law to reach a situation whereby men and women coexist and participate under terms of equality in all areas of our society, by putting into operation, among other measures, a body to defend the concept of equality and the guarantee fund for the non-payment of pensions.
Moreover, it is essential to favour the incorporation of women in the job market, not only out of a sense of social justice but as an essential factor to increasing the efficiency and productivity of our economic systems. For this purpose, we are going to promote a specific plan in collaboration with economic and social agents to incorporate women into the job market, especially in those areas of vocational and university training in which they are least represented.
On the other hand, in our government programme, we are going to make education the fundamental basis on which to ensure the equality and social integration of individuals, as well as to provide leverage for our economic growth.
We want to reduce school failure rates to below 10%, in other words, to the level of the best European countries, making the Basque Country the land of learning and a reference model in the world of education not only in the Spanish State but also in Europe.
With his aim, in the area of formal education, the Basque Education System Law will be promoted, seeking the maximum levels of consensus between the education department and the school community. Moreover, the autonomy of education centres, multilingualism, quality certificates for schools, policies of equality of opportunity and the professional development of teachers will be promoted.
In the area of the University System, the Basque University System Law will be developed by integrating the three Basque Universities in a European space of higher education, the financing of the Basque Public University will be guaranteed and the international projection and exchange schemes of our students will be fostered.
Within this framework, a new University Plan will be passed, new qualifications will be created and collaborations between the University and the business community will be promoted.
Special attention will be given to fostering basic research within our universities. For this purpose, and within the framework of the new University Plan, a mixed foundation will be constituted with participation of the Basque Government and the University, open to collaboration with private companies and research organisations for the development of joint projects.
This agency will bring together and coordinate all the university research areas and departments, channel projects with private companies and will establish collaboration agreements with sector agencies and foundations in Europe and the world.
In the field of vocational training, the new Basque Vocational Training Plan will be fully applied in order to make vocational training, both at a course level and in continuous and occupational training, an example of equality and competitiveness, and an essential factor for the integration and permanent adaptation of the job market. Within this framework, the Basque Vocational Training Law will be promoted as well as the creation of the Basque Professional Qualifications Council.
Lastly, I am going to refer to culture and the Basque language as the elements that give shape to our collective identity and represent the main link in a social State based on the individual. Individuals with values, individuals with roots and individuals open to the world. To do this, we will develop the Basque Culture Plan, structured around the Basque language, cultural heritage, the fostering and dissemination of culture, infrastructures, the culture industry and audiovisual media.
In this area, the Basque Museum, Archives and Libraries System will be structured through a series of individual laws, the Cultural Infrastructures Plan will be developed, the audiovisual sector will be promoted through the Audiovisual Law and the creation of the Basque Audiovisual Council, and programmes will be promoted to foster the culture industry and the visual and performing arts.
To continue increasing the number of speakers of our language as well as opening up new areas in which Basque is used, must be a fundamental priority of this legislature. In order to achieve this objective, we are going to pay special attention to the incorporation of immigrants into the bilingual reality, provide incentives for the introduction of the Basque language in the socio-economic sphere, and ensure the presence of the Basque language in the New Information and Communications Technologies and the creation of digital contents and the development of new applications and technical resources.
Basque society has shown, time and time again, its will and energy to work in favour of the Basque language. The inspiration, the responsibility, the support and collaboration of everyone who lives in this country will also be necessary, because the future of Basque, the maximum exponent of our personality as a people, depends on the Basque Country, without any doubt.
I.2) A Project to foster balanced and sustainable development.
Technology and sustainability will be pillars of our policy to promote economic growth and to increase the well being of Basque society as a whole.
Our next challenge as a country is to be on a par with Europe technologically. In this regard, we are going to foster the second economic transformation of the Basque Country on the basis of technological development in its broadest sense; i.e., the promotion of research programmes, the development of the information and knowledge society and the extension of the principle of excellence and total quality in companies and organisations.
Our political commitment to research and innovation will materialise in the setting up of the Basque Innovation Agency, as an instrument to coordinate and foster the Basque Science, Technology and Innovation System. The Agency will group together all the agents in the system, develop a reference model for management and innovation, promote patents and technology transfer, and will foster participation in European projects and international relations.
Moreover, the amount of public expenditure used in innovation and technological development programmes will grow annually at a rate above the nominal growth in Gross Domestic Product until the budget allocation to investments in R&D at the end 2009 is a minimum of 50% higher than at the beginning of 2005.
On this basis, we are also going to strengthen all public policies of a horizontal nature to improve the competitiveness, productivity and internationalisation of Basque industry.
For this reason, we are going to initiate new programmes in favour the creation of new companies, the development of new financial instruments for the consolidation and international projection of business groups based in the Basque Country, cooperation between industries, the efficiency of our industrial associations, diversification, the promotion of a spirit of enterprise, financing through risk capital, the social economy, the creation of new technology centres, the development of industrial land and, in particular, a specific integrated programme for supporting SMEs.
Another basic pillar of our strategy of growth will be sustainability.
We are going to provide leadership in sustainable development from the social, territorial, sectorial, infrastructural, energy and environment viewpoints. For this purpose, we will develop policies designed to reach the following objectives:
- Promote a balanced social and territorial development through programmes with special reference to underprivileged areas.
- Favour the sectorial equilibrium of the primary sector, improving the quality of life of our fishermen and farmers, and guaranteeing the maintenance of the rural community as an element to protect the natural milieu and biological diversity.
- Develop an infrastructures policy according to criteria of accessibility and sustainability, giving priority to public transport and railway and maritime systems as well as the intermodal balance. All of this will be achieved through the application of the Sustainable Transport Master Plan, the strategic lines of which are defined to the year 2012, which includes the construction of a new high-speed railway network of a mixed nature -passengers and goods-, which will connect this region directly with Europe and the rest of the Iberian peninsula.
- Develop a new strategic energy plan for the Basque country in order to increase the use of natural gas, renewable energies, energy saving and reduce the emission of contaminating gases into the atmosphere, guaranteeing compliance with the Kyoto undertakings.
- Lead the Basque Sustainable Development Strategy, defined up to the year 2020, improving the environmental quality of our air, cleaning our rivers and seas, recovering contaminating land, reducing and recycling municipal and industrial waste, and increasing the number of natural areas and protective reserves.
I.3) A Project to open this country to the entire world.
The third major premise of the actions of the Government will be to safeguard the positive image of the Basque country abroad. "Accept what is universal and contribute what is your own" - this must be our mission as a country, in a world which is more and more interrelated and globalised. For this reason, we are going to make the Basque Country a country open to the world, a country that promotes its internal relations with the Basque Territories and Communities located on both sides of the border, which develops its links with Basques resident abroad, which increases our active presence in Europe and in the world, and which increases its commitment to solidarity with underprivileged peoples.
Through the development of a European euro region.
With this aim, we will promote historical, cultural, linguistic, economic and social links with the Autonomous Community of Navarre and Aquitaine in order to develop a Basque cross-border euro region that defends our common interests on the European Atlantic axis.
Strengthening our presence in Europe
To achieve this, we are going to strengthen our participation in the Institutions of the Union and in the Community's decision-making forums. We will intensify our bilateral relations with other European regions and peoples. We will strengthen our representation in European interregional forums and will increase our active presence in the Atlantic Arc Commission, fortifying the strategic position of the Basque Country in this fundamental European "corridor".
Reinforcing our international presence and creating with closer links with Basque communities abroad.
We are going to strengthen the existing official delegations of the Basque Country abroad and promote the opening of new offices in those countries and priority geographical areas to support the internationalisation of companies and reinforce our political and institutional presence.
Likewise, the projection abroad of Basque culture in all its amplitude as a symbol of our identity in the world, will be promoted through the creation of the Basque Country Institute, which will constitute a new essential instrument to create closer cultural ties with those areas and countries with which the Basque Country has been linked historically, especially in Europe and in areas in which Basque groups and centres are based.
Accordingly, we will also continued to develop closer ties with Basques resident abroad, by establishing and fostering exchange programmes, training young people in the Basque Country, providing assistance to those people with difficulties, who live abroad and who are Basque by birth, as well as the creation of the Basque Emigration Museum.
Increase our solidarity with the less developed countries and areas of the Earth.
One of our signs of identity is solidarity. Should solidarity cease to be a characteristic of the Basques, we will cease to be a people with a universal identity. In line with our identity, we are going to strengthen our policy of cooperation for development, in accordance with the aims of the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations. To do this, we are going to present before Parliament a Cooperation Law and put into motion a four-year Cooperation Master plan on the basis of strengthening Basque cooperation in the poorest communities, in areas of conflict and stateless peoples that suffer aggressions to their human rights, introducing the gender approach, guaranteeing the efficiency of subsidies and the absence of profit in projects, and reinforcing the coordination with non-governmental agencies.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
In short, this is a summary of some of the main features to be included within the framework of the actions of this Government.
To this effect, I wish to refer you to the Coalition Agreement reached recently, which sets out more than 200 programmatic commitments that represent the nucleus of our social contract with the Basque Country for this legislature in different areas of government.
The initiatives that I have just mentioned represent only a number of significant examples of our commitment to one of the three challenges of this legislature, in other words, Governability. I am now going to develop the second part of my speech, which refers to how the Coalition is going to respond to another two priority commitments: In other words, Peace and Political Normalisation.
