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The emancipation of young people, main priority of the new V. Youth Plan approved by the Basque Government

2023 October 17
  • The Government has set up an interdepartmental Bureau on the humanitarian and socio-economic consequences of the Middle East conflict
  • The Basque Government is in favour of appealing the decision of the Higher Court of the Basque Country that limits the use of the Basque language in local companies

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 General Secretary for Social Transition and Agenda 2030, Jonan Fernández.

Fernandez reported on the V Youth Plan-Gazte Plana approved today and presented in the Governing Council meeting. Since 1999, the Gazte Plana has been a consolidated tool for the promotion of a transversal youth policy of the Basque Government. The novelty of this V. Gazte Plana is that it is part of a new scenario, once the Youth Law was approved in 2022.

This new Plan brings together the measures of the Basque Government to promote youth emancipation, facilitate the development of young people and involve them in social transformation and is framed within the context of deep concern for youth emancipation, which has become a strategic priority for the Basque Government. Through this comprehensive policy, which is brought together in the Gazte Plana, the objective is to contribute to the emancipation rate of young people approaching 50% by 2030, the level at which the average of the 27 countries of the EU stands — 50.6%. In terms of the average age of emancipation, the challenge is to bring it below 28 years of age.

Likewise, Jonan Fernandez explained that the Basque Government has created an Interdepartmental Committee for the monitoring, anticipation and assessment of events in the Middle East and the Near East in order to channel responses to the humanitarian crisis and assess measures to deal with the socio-economic effects that may arise. In this regard, the Basque Government has condemned any violent, terrorist or warlike action against the civilian population and has aligned itself with the calls of the United Nations in support of international mediation and negotiated solutions. As put forward by the President (Lehendakari) in the Governing Council meeting, the first meeting of the interdepartmental round table was held on Tuesday, October 24, at 5 pm in the presidential office, where the decision to contribute 500,000 euros to the Emergency Appeal made by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) will be adopted.

AGREEMENTS OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL

Along with the approval of the V Youth Plan-Gazte Plana, the Governing Council today dealt with other issues of which the spokesman Bingen Zupiria highlighted the following:

The Governing Council has given the green light to the decree that will regulate the programs and services that ensure the employability of people with disabilities in the Basque Country. This decree increases the amounts for hiring in the ordinary market, for the adaptation of jobs, and expands the groups to be protected. It is a document that affects the formula of protected work and is fundamental for the integration of people with disabilities into the labour market. This is a formula that has been promoted throughout the legislature because it facilitates the acquisition of social and work habits for the people to whom it provides employment, improves their employability and facilitates their incorporation into the ordinary system of production.

It has also approved the withdrawal from the conflict of competences with the Spanish Government regarding the use of the Minerva software application, activated to manage the procedures that execute the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. “At the time, an appeal of unconstitutionality was filed, considering that the Basque Government had its own tools to track alleged conflicts of interest on the part of those involved in the processing of subsidies, taking into account that Minerva (of the Spanish Tax Agency) is a tool precisely for the systematic analysis of the risk of conflict of interest,” explained Zupiria. “In view of the divergence,” he continued, “in March 2023 the State Bilateral Commission (CAV) was opened to negotiate an agreement on the State Budget Law for 2023 and developed in an Order — against which a positive conflict of competence was filed. Last September there was an agreement between both parties in the Bilateral Commission and it was agreed that the Minerva system would only be used in contracting and grant procedures derived from the European Recovery and Resilience Plan funds, that is to say, that they would only carry out the tracking in those cases.” “By resolving the differences on the law we also desist in the positive conflict of competence, which is the decision taken today by the Government,” he concluded.

The Governing Council has also approved the authorisation of three agreements between Emakunde and the three provincial councils for the development and financing of the inter-institutional programme Beldur Barik for the prevention of violence against young women.  Among the main activities of Beldur Barik (Without Fear) is a competition aimed at young people between 12 and 20 years old that rewards artistic expressions that show how boys and girls face situations of inequality with the Beldur Barik attitude.

Finally, and in relation to the Department of Culture, the Governing Council has given the green light to the agreement to be signed with the Provincial Council of Bizkaia for the reconstruction, cataloguing, digitalisation and dissemination of the archives of the Sota family and of the shipping company "Sota y Aznar". “At the beginning of the year, the Sota family made a large part of its funds available to the Historical Archive of the Basque Country and in that act the President has already highlighted the historical value of these funds and stressed that the recovery of the archives that were scattered by the civil war and Francoism is a matter of historical heritage and is also a matter of memory and democratic justice,” said the spokesman. Following the agreement approved at today's Council meeting, the Sota family’s archives and those of the "Sota y Aznar" shipping company will be catalogued and digitised in open format in accordance with the standards in force for the archiving system.

At the end of the press conference and in response to questions from the media, the spokesman said that the Basque Government is in favour of appealing the ruling of the Higher Court of the Basque Country on the law of local entities of the Basque Country, pending what judicial services say. In this regard Zupiria said that it is a clear example of legalisation of politics, “we are facing an issue that in its application has not generated any controversy or polemic in the Basque local institutions but as a result of the intervention of a political party that has taken this case to the courts of justice, we have been involved in a tangle in which we still do not know clearly what consequences it may have.” He also recalled that the municipal law was passed in the Basque Parliament by an absolute majority, that it has the support of the Provincial Councils and local entities and that it was the subject of an agreement between the Basque Government and the Government of Spain. “Therefore, it is a legal norm that at the time obtained the greatest political agreement that a law can have,” he stressed.

Finally, the spokesman pointed out that it is time to address the issue of languages from a political point of view in the Spanish state.  “The protection of languages that constitute a heritage of the state, is something that obliges all public authorities and now that a new legislature is beginning, if the investiture that is being negotiated is successful, it would be the time for the state to seriously address this issue of the other official languages,” he concluded.          

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