A Radical Legacy or a Radical Future? a Cultural Political Economy of the Environmental Crisis in the Post-ETA Politics in Basque Country

The end of ETA's violence and the legalisation of Batasuna's successor parties, Bildu and Sortu, in Spain have put the spotlight on Bildu's institutional adaptation and organisational evolution, while the mainstream media associate it with ETA's legacy and, therefore, with focus on it as a radical party. This presentation moves away from purely identitarian and political conceptualisations of Bildu, focusing on its potential role in fostering an alternative vision of capitalism in the Basque Country. This vision questions the current neoliberal hegemony of the PNV and rearticulates new socio-economic alliances to achieve it. Specifically, this article aims to explore how Bildu's policy towards a climate transition renews discourses on the role of the 'state' in the economy, and emphasises the importance of the public and social economy to define new horizons of social justice. The climate transition can be said to form the basis of a new economic imaginary that promotes shared socio-semiotic systems around which to share similar conceptions of climate, as well as a new political model. Based on this concept, the presentation explores the struggles between representatives of Bildu, local authorities, businesses, citizen groups and the current government to adopt or resist such an approach around a case study linked to the Norway energy company Statkraft. In this context, it is argued that, at least three paths can be detected. These are first, a ‘techno-market’ solution led by global private initiative, second, a state led climate sustainability, and third, energy sufficiency for a post-capitalist context. The paper draws on cultural political economy to explore the discursive and extra-discursive practices that contribute to the selection and retention of certain discourses and their potential transformation in durable institutional and policy solutions to shed light on the vision of capitalist restructuring of Bildu in Basque Country, and its transformative potential.