Idoia Mendia: "Bildu's commitment to the governance of Spain is a milestone"

• Basque Country. The leader of the Basque PSOE youths opposes "whitewashing" EH Bildu despite Sánchez's negotiation

• Government.Carmen Calvo also involves Bildu and PNV in legal reforms

Last Saturday in San Sebastián he applauded the intervention of Víctor Trimiño, the new president of the young Basque socialists.

Do you also oppose Pedro Sánchez "whitewashing" EH Bildu in Congress? Everyone is free to express the opinions they consider.

Freedom is one of the characteristics of the Socialist Party and it makes us different from other parties.

We have different opinions regarding ETA violence and Bildu's role, but we all share that we have this

always at the foot of the canyon.

Trying to allow Spain, at a critical moment like the one we are living in, to have a budget is what we socialists have been doing all our lives.

When ETA killed and when it stopped killing.

Between 2012 and 2016, we approved a Housing Law in the Basque Country with EH Bildu and UPyD.

Now, we all need the General State Budgets.

It is a historic milestone that EH Bildu is committing itself to the governance of Spain.

The President of the Government of Spain and Secretary General of the PSOE cannot be questioned about his ethical commitment to any type of violence.

The PP is not up to the needs of Spain but it is not new ...

But it is not the PP who denounces the political whitewashing of Bildu but a young leader of the Basque Socialist Party who says that "there is no arithmetic need to treat EH Bildu as a normal party when ethically it is not." For you, EH Bildu is just another political party? Laws in democracy are the same for everyone ... But we are talking, as Víctor Trimiño said, about ethics ... EH Bildu is a legal party. Sortu is and, as far as I know, has a representation in the Spanish Parliament after democratic elections. Represents thousands of citizens. Leaders of the PP with active ETA have already proposed opening channels of dialogue and agreement with EH Bildu. If a scorched earth speech were not made in Spain, politics would be very different. Let's compare ourselves with Catalonia: there we have witnessed a process of rupture that has society divided in half. Here there are two nationalist parties such as PNV and EH Bildu that participate in the governability of Spain. So it is inconsequential that, as Trimiño denounced, EH Bildu has not condemned the 850 murders of ETA and now organizes and supports with tributes to the ETA when they leave prison? Bildu, or Sortu, justify the tributes. It is true. We think they should finish them off. But when we have gone to the courts of Justice, the judges do not prevent these acts and we cannot go further. Come on, the Budgets justify everything ... No. But what are the Budgets about? It is not so important with whom you agree but on what issues you are agreeing. These are very specific questions. Q.- You said in the Basque campaign that ethically you would not govern with EH Bildu, where is the limit now of what is ethical or not to do with Otegi's party? When you govern, you have to share a vision of the country and you must do so based on ethical principles. Another thing is that you can agree on specific laws such as a budget law. Is the PSE going to remove Trimiño from his position as leader of the Basque socialist youths? Set aside? But if the youth activists have just voted for him! After what Trimiño said on Saturday, does he have a future in the Socialist Party of Euskadi? Will he have all the future he wants to have? Do you assume that the PNV will support the Budgets de Sánchez and Iglesias? I think so. They have said it. He will negotiate and his willingness is to reach an agreement but it is a question that is not my concern. Does reissuing your pact in Euskadi with you in the Government reinforces the alliances between PSOE and PNV? What is clear is that political stability has become in value in our last agreement in Euskadi. We share that stability in the institutions is essential to get out of the crisis. The Basque Country will receive the management of the prisons in the coming months, and the Basque Government already announced in the last legislature its own model for ETA prisoners with semi-freedom compliance, Do you support it? The Government of Pedro Sánchez, always within the law, launched a model that seeks to recognize the damage caused. We must work on the true social reintegration of ETA prisoners because at some point they will end their sentence and will end up returning to their villages. And they will be in Euskadi, where they have done so much damage. It is interesting that ETA convicts serve their sentences as closely as possible to their families because that results in a closeness to reality. Are ETA prisoners different from rapists or pedophiles, as Sortu's 'number two' has assured , to justify their tributes? Every criminal has the door open to reintegration as stated in article 25 of the

. I defend the Constitution. Every criminal deserves a chance, and our criminal law does not seek revenge. I believe in reintegration and I think that is what the

is working on

. The Minister of Justice announced last Wednesday that he is already studying the requests for pardon against Catalan politicians convicted of sedition, was this pardon necessary to achieve the ERC's support for the Budgets? What the Government cannot do is prevaricate and with requests made nine months ago they have to initiate those files. I do not know how these requests will end and it will be a deliberation of the

. The Minister of Justice has done what he has to do as a minister. You, who are a lawyer and former Minister of Justice in the Basque Country, would you pardon them to deactivate the Catalan independence movement? The Catalan independence movement is deactivated from the harsh reality that they have stamped themselves against the wall. He has realized that unilateralism is a hoax. But the damage to Catalan society has been done.