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02/16/2011

Congress, with reproaches to the PSOE for changing its vote, takes the first step to change the names of the Basque territories

Congress has taken the first step to change the official denomination of the three Basque provinces, which will henceforth be called Araba/Alava, Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia. It has done so by accepting processing of a Bill proposed by EAJ-PNV to achieve this historical demand of Basque national, and after a debate in which the PSOE was obliged to hear various reproaches for accepting an initiative to which it had systematically denied its vote in recent years.

Congress, with reproaches to the PSOE for changing its vote, takes the first step to change the names of the Basque territories

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The last time the Plenary Session of Congress debated the subject was in July within the framework of the debate on the state of the Nation. At that time the PSOE and the PP united their votes to reject the pretensions of the nationalists, and the socialists claimed that they could only accept this demand provided that it was to incorporate the nomenclature in the Basque language, but not to substitute the name in Spanish.

The joint spokesperson of EAJ-PNV, Aitor Esteban, asked that his initiative be taken into consideration "in a natural manner", and that all State authorities and communications media accept what Parliament had determined.