 |
CRISIS WITHOUT END2009 has been tough. However you want to look at it, it's been a hard year. In all fields, in economic and social aspects it has also been a long, difficult year. The downturn is affecting all economic and social agents, and the Basque Country is no exception. All the alarm bells are ringing and we have all set to work to survive, to the best of our abilities.
|
President of Gaindegia |
|
It has not been a good year for the articulation and development of the Basque Country. Legal cases against Euskal Herriko Laborantza Ganbara and the detention and imprisonment of the trade unionist Rafa Diez Usabiaga, member of the Gaindegia Board of Directors, are just two examples of the additional difficulties we have suffered. The articulation process for the Basque Country has been weakened, not only on the weather maps, but above all in the absence of common policies to tackle this crisis.
However, despite the difficulties, the crisis has once again demonstrated the importance of the economic and social dimensions for the Basque Country. We remain absolutely convinced that working with a complete Basque Country, with better inter-territory cohesion, we would have better tools and greater resources to fight the crisis. There is no point in neighbouring territorial administrations competing with each other to tackle common problems. Dependency on the state is absurd when this only makes the crisis worse, as in the case of the Spanish state or it sacrifices the development of one territory to benefit another, as occurs in France with the North Basque Country.
With or without the crisis, Gaindegia has been going for five years! Looking back on our work so far, we are satisfied with what we have done: the observatory seed is germinating. The resources made available for Gaindegia have been used correctly and effectively. This publication, for the third year running, serves as a good example.
We have demonstrated the clear need for the Observatory for the Basque Country's economic and social development. However, this project needs much more help and more contributions than it has received to date. We have demonstrated that it is possible to compile, harmonise and diffuse good quality information on the Basque Country as a whole, in sufficient quantity. Now we face a challenge: to get the economic and social agents that form the backbone of the Basque Country to move forward, cooperating and working in a network to structure the Basque Country observatory. At the end of the day, these agents are the foundations of the observatory that puts the Basque Country on the map. |
|
Read the document in pdf.
Return to the main index.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| GR09_INTRODUCTION.pdf | 47.08 KB |
273 reads
