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A newly-created Basque party suspected of being linked to separatist organisation ETA, which features on an EU list of terrorist organisations, will contest the European Parliament elections and may send one MEP to Strasbourg, the Spanish conservative opposition has warned.
Spain currently has 54 MEPs. In the 2004 poll, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, PES-affiliated) won 43.46% of the vote and 25 MEPs, while the People's Party (PP, EPP-affiliated) obtained 41.21% and 24 MEPs.
In addition, Galeusca–Peoples of Europe (an alliance of nationalist parties from Catalonia, the Basque country and Galicia) obtained two MEPs and another nationalist coalition - Europe of the Peoples – one. All three nationalist members sit in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Basque guerrilla organisation ETA has killed over 800 people in a 40-year campaign for independence from the Spanish state.
Last month, ETA's latest military chief was arrested and the government has said it believes the group is facing a leadership crisis as support crumbles. Violent attacks have become less and less frequent, but ETA members recently said that the group is planning a new and "effective" campaign of violence after a period of "reflection".
The Basque region is now ruled by a new coalition between the Socialists and the conservative Popular Party, marking a sharp U-turn compared to nearly 30 years of nationalist tradition.
Jaime Mayor Oreja, head of the list of the centre-right Partido Popular (People's Party), urged the Socialist government to "use the appropriate democratic procedures" to prevent Internationalist Initiative-Solidarity amongst the People (IISP), a newly-created extreme left party, from running in the EU elections.
Mayor Oreja made the statement at a public event yesterday (24 May) in the company of José Antonio Ortega Lara, a civil servant and the victim of ETA's longest kidnapping in 1996-1997. Oreja warned that it would set a dangerous precedent if IISP managed to send a representative to the European Parliament.
IISP is expected to run in the European elections on 7 June after Spain's Constitutional Court overturned on 22 May an earlier decision by a lower court to ban the party, describing it as the latest version of ETA's political wing.
The lower court had said IISP was the "fraudulent successor" of Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarok and Batasuna, all considered to have represented ETA's political wing under different names, and all banned under 2003 legislation outlawing those who do not condemn terrorism.
However, the Constitutional Court statement said there is no evidence that IISP was a front for Batasuna or that it was run by ETA.
The ruling Socialists maintained their silence on the case, the Spanish press writes, adding that only Antonio Pastor, a Socialist leader from Vizcaya, had warned against attempts by ETA to instrumentalise IISP.
Commenting on the court's decision, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredu Pérez Rubalcaba said: "The police and the civil guard have done their job, so have the tribunals, that's the way a state of law works - what the government must do in this case here is to respect the ruling."
The Spanish press believes IISP has a realistic chance of sending one MEP to Strasbourg.
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