Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-007"
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"en.20000301.2.3-007"2
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"Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I want to thank you for your statement last Tuesday and for your words today in memory of Fernando Buesa Blanco. He was a member of the Basque regional parliament, spokesman for the Socialist Party in that parliament and also a former vice-president of the Basque regional government.
Madam President, the best tribute that my Group and this House can pay to Fernando Buesa is to take on board his vision, as a European, of the Basque Country, Spain and Europe. The following is a translated extract from his autobiography. ‘We are in Europe. Anyone of my age – I am 54 – can remember their grandparents’ era and their parents’ era and, of course, is living in the current era. We can also see into the era in which our children will live. In my grandparents’ time, it took several days to travel from Vitoria to Seville. Now you can go from Vitoria to Copenhagen in 2 or 3 hours by plane. Today, at the end of the 20th century, a single market is operating in Europe in which we will soon be using a single currency. We can now travel much more easily than our grandparents could within Spain or even within the Basque Country.
We are building a vast European area which will firstly be linked economically and then politically. This process may take a long time but it is unstoppable and, what is more, desirable. The public still regard this as being a long way off but it is very real and should serve to make us question certain aspects of our current situation.
In a debate within the Socialist Party on the Irish process, someone said: “In the end, the key to the Irish solution was that everyone involved had the following thought: does it really matter whether we are Irish or British? Everyone can be what they want to be because, if Ireland and Britain are both in the European Union, there is no point in killing each other for being Irish or British. What difference does it make if the national level is no longer going to function?”
We in the Basque Country could ask ourselves the same question. Does it really matter if we are Basque or Spanish or European? We have talked a lot about what it is to be Basque, but a Basque today dresses like a Dane and reads the same things as a British person. If life is going to be lived on a much more global basis, as is already happening, and our children will therefore be living in the Europe which we are creating, why are we killing each other for being Basque or Spanish?’
Fernando Buesa also said the following, which everyone in Ireland has probably thought. ‘If we are killing each other for no reason – and this was happening in Ireland because there were paramilitary groups on all sides – we should be resolutely asking ourselves this question in the Basque Country too. What difference does it make to be Basque? Surely it is all the same thing. You can be what you want to be. If, in the future, economics and politics and vital decisions for each country are dealt with in the European arena, there is no point killing or dying for being Basque or Spanish’.
May he rest in peace."@en1
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