Otegi calls for an 'anti-fascist wall': the economic cost of a metaphor

Otegi calls for an 'anti-fascist wall' and history repeats itself as farce

The coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, has once again shaken the board with his call to build an 'anti-fascist, republican, abertzale, feminist and socialist wall'. The statement, which sounds more like an ideological collage than a government programme, has peine the debate on the limits of nationalist discourse in an economic context that is not conducive to grand gestures.

The first thing that stands out is the historical irony. The 'Iron Belt' of Bilbao, the fortification that Basque nationalists built during the Civil War to defend the city, was a monumental fiasco. The engineer who designed it, Alejandro Goicoechea, defected to the Francoist side with the blueprints under his arm. The defensive line, which was supposed to be impregnable, was breached in June 1937 with hardly any resistance. Otegi revives the symbol, but the metaphor backfires: the original did not work and the current one, if it were to materialise, would be just as permeable.

The Basque 'cupo' and industry: who pays for the wall?

Behind the verbal pyrotechnics lies an uncomfortable economic question: with what money would such a wall be financed? The Basque Country enjoys a privileged tax regime —the 'concierto' and the 'cupo'— that allows it to collect its own taxes and transfer an agreed amount to the State. According to critics, this system is a 'continuous robbery of Spaniards' that allows the autonomous community to maintain public spending above average. Without that cushion, the Basque economy —which is already showing symptoms of industrial decline— would hardly sustain pharaonic projects.

Basque industry, once the engine of the north, is now largely sustained by tax privileges and integration into the Spanish market. Several analyses suggest that loss of competitiveness and relocation are eroding the productive fabric. Meanwhile, Otegi's discourse avoids any mention of real problems: housing, population ageing, youth unemployment or the management of the income guarantee rent (RGI). Instead of concrete proposals, he offers a sarracena frontier that divides society between those inside the wall and those who should be left outside.

The problems Otegi does not mention

The coordinator of Bildu has a conviction for kidnapping and an unpaid compensation, according to reminders circulating in analysis threads. His past as an ETA member and his release from prison without having compensated the victims weigh down any initiative that claims to present itself as 'anti-fascist'. The criticism is not minor: someone who justified violent coercion for decades can hardly set himself up as guarantor of a democratic sanitary cordon.

The call for the wall also clashes with the demographic and social reality of the Basque Country. Phenomena such as immigration, multiculturalism or sensual diversity are left out of the homogeneous narrative that Otegi advocates. His discourse —which attempts to reconcile abertzalismo with feminism, socialism and republicanism— seems more a political marketing operation than a viable roadmap.

In short, Otegi's 'anti-fascist wall' is, for now, a shot in the dark. Without an economic plan behind it, without recognising the lessons of history and avoiding the concrete problems of Basques, the proposal remains a rallying cry. The debate, however, exposes the contradictions of a nationalism that wants to build sarracena borders while depending on a fiscal and economic framework that only works within Spain.