The Communist Party of the Basque Homelands ( eu, Euskal Herrialdeetako Alderdi Komunista, EHAK; es, Partido Comunista de las Tierras Vascas, PCTV) was a communist Basque separatist party in the Basque Country,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. The party was outlawed by the

Spanish Supreme Court The Supreme Court ('', TS'') is the highest court in the Kingdom of Spain. Originally established pursuant to Title V of the Constitution of 1812 to replace —in all matters that affected justice— the System of Councils, and currently regula ...

in 2008 after it was judicially proven to be part of

Batasuna Batasuna (; en, Unity) was a Basque nationalist political party. Based mainly in Spain, it was banned in 2003, after a court ruling declared proven that the party was financing ETA with public money. The party is included in the "European Union ...

and, ultimately,

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

History

EHAK was legally registered for the first time in 2002 but had no known activity until 2005, remaining inactive during these years. In this year, within weeks of the regional Basque election EHAK suddenly rose to national prominence when it publicly announced that it would assume the program of the banned

abertzale ''Abertzale'' (; English: "patriot", literally "fond of the fatherland") is a Basque term usually referring to people or political groups who are associated with Basque nationalism. Although the term is synonym of "patriot", its common use in Ba ...

lists of Aukera Guztiak and

. EHAK was then widely considered to be a proxy to circumvent the recent ruling which had outlawed Batasuna. Like Batasuna, their representatives refused to explicitly condemn the

attacks, being the only important political party not to do so in the Basque Country and Spain. Batasuna representatives asked their supporters to vote for EHAK, which obtained 150,188 votes (12.5%), entering the

Basque Parliament The Basque Parliament ( Basque: ''Eusko Legebiltzarra'', Spanish: ''Parlamento Vasco'') is the legislative body of the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain and the elected assembly to which the Basque Government is responsible. The Parliament ...

with nine seats. The People's Party requested that the Spanish government conducted investigations to ban EHAK too, though the initially State Legal Service (''Abogacía General del Estado'') and the Attorney General's Office (''Fiscalía General del Estado'') found no evidence to support legal actions against the party.

Outlawing

On 18 September 2008 the party was outlawed by the

. According to the legal inquiry, EHAK was "instrumental in continuing the illegal action designed by ETA/Ekin/Batasuna", rapidly losing its autonomy to replace Batasuna's role in the institutional front of ETA's activities. Batasuna got, via EHAK, 837,000

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s corresponding to the public funding given to political parties with parliamentary representation; with no less than 34 Batasuna members (including some of their top officers) were hired by EHAK and paid with this public funding. In the end, according to the judicial inquiry, EHAK followed Batasuna's instructions to the point that there wasn't any difference. On 4 August 2009 the judge

Baltasar Garzón Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a former Spanish judge. Garzón formerly served on Spain's central criminal court, the ''Audiencia Nacional'', and was the examining magistrate of the ''Juzgado Central de Instrucción No. 5'', ...

announced his intention to put a number of PCTV members on trial for ETA membership. Among them were two former Basque parliament deputies Karmele Berasategi and Nekane Erauskin; the party president Juan Carlos Ramos and the two party treasurers Jesús María Aguirre and Sonia Jacinto. Several other members, including Basque parliament deputy Maite Aranburu, were forced to testify in front of the .

References

External links

EHAK Official web page
2002 establishments in Spain 2008 disestablishments in Spain Banned political parties in the Basque Country (autonomous community) Banned communist parties Banned secessionist parties Basque nationalism Defunct communist parties in the Basque Country (autonomous community) Defunct nationalist parties in Spain Left-wing nationalist parties Political parties disestablished in 2008 Political parties established in 2002 Pro-independence parties {{Spain-party-stub