Las ocasiones perdidas: La vertiente europea de las relaciones entre la Comunidad Foral Navarra y la Comunidad Autónoma de Euskadi

Abstract

European Union, concretely, have had on the competencies and actions of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and the Statutory Community of Navarre, starting from a assumption, according to which both communities have participated, in a different manner, in the constituting processes in which they have been and are immersed, since the 1978 Constitution to the European Constitution. It also analyses the scarce avenues of institutional participation allowed for regions in European matters, both due to the concept itself of European juridical architecture and because of the adverse will of several member states, amongst which is Spain. We then analyse the existence of a real emptying of competencies that has harmed both Autonomous Communities of Vasconia, a situation which has become even more serious because of the absence of minimum institutional relations between both communities. The main people affected by this lack of relations are the people administrated, the citizens of the Basque Autonomous Community and the Statutory Community. This situation contrasts with the new forms of understanding European governance, based on regional and trans-frontier cooperation and coordination between the various levels of the administration, from local to supra-state levels and both in the vertical sense - between Administrations in different levels - and horizontal (between equals), and implying other actors and stakeholders not necessarily connected to the Administration. It also contrasts with the evolution of modern political thinking in terms of policy networks where public policy processes are analysed from their conception and design (participated processes) to their implementation and execution (subcontracted processes). Each time there is more importance attached to non-institutional forms of regional cooperation, without, at the same time, undervaluing institutional channels. The author concludes saying that cooperation between the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and the Statutory Community of Navarre is a history of lost opportunities, with a single interruption that was, precisely, that of the Cooperation Agreement signed between both communities in May 1996, as an instrument foreseen by the legislation and which, in spite of everything, was not implemented. In this sense, the Presidents of the Statutory Community, Mr. Otano, and of the Basque Autonomous Community, Mr Ardanza, signed in Vitoria, on 25th October 1995, a Protocol declaration qfintentions on the convenience of propitiating and developing relationships of permanent collaboration within the framework of their respective competencies.