Xabier Arzalluz

Xabier Arzalluz Antia (Azkoitia, Spain 24 August 1932) is a Basque nationalist politician, who has been the leader of the Partido Nacionalista Vasco for two decades, until 2004. He is a conservative, nationalist and a Christian-Democrat. He was also the most powerful politician in Basque Country, and made all strategic decisions in the Basque Nationalist Party from 1986 onwards.

Early years

From a Carlist family, he studied in a Jesuit school in Durango.
During the 1960s, he received degrees in Law and Philosophy at the University of Zaragoza.
He spent some time in Frankfurt-am-Main preparing a thesis on German Christian Democracy and studying Theology.
Back in Spain, he became a Jesuit priest.
After another period in Frankfurt and Madrid, he worked at the Jesuit University of Deusto.
In 1968, he joined the clandestine PNV, mentored by the pre-war leader Juan de Ajuriaguerra.
In 1971, he was admitted to the leadership of the Biscayne branch.
He secularized and got married.

Spanish transition to democracy

In 1977 and 1979, he was elected as a member of the Spanish Congress of Deputies for PNV in Guipuzcoa.
He participated in the redaction of the Autonomy Act of the Basque Country.
In 1979, he renounced his seat and substituted Carlos Garaikoetxea as PNV leader, a position that he would maintain until 2004.
During his rules the PNV maintained the dominant position in the politics of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.

Later career

Later in the 1980s, Garaikoetxea, the ruling lehendakari, struggled for autonomy from the party.
Arzalluz however asserted the organization role over individual members.
This issue among others led in 1984 to the schism of the new party Eusko Alkartasuna, led by Garaikoetxea.

Arzalluz was the main speaker of the Basque Nationalist Party, published his opinions in his Sunday articles for the Basque newspaper Deia and in many public speeches during PNV meetings like the Party Day and the Day of the Basque Homeland.
While beloved by PNV voters, he was the less popular party leader among the general Spanish public. [1]
His views made him the target of frequent attacks in Spanish press, including whole books paid by anti-secessionist foundations funded with public money, who presented him as a Machiavellian mastermind who wrested more and more concessions from Spanish governments trying to block ETA.

He had a reciprocal admiration with the Italian Christian-Democrat leaders Francesco Cossiga and Giulio Andreotti.
In spite of his contacts with European Christian Democrats, the PNV had to leave the Christian Democrat International in the 1990s of pressure by the Spanish People's Party

Besides his political role, he has also been a professor of Constitutional Law (in Basque language) at the University of Deusto in Bilbao until 1999.

External links

Basque Nationalist Party

Basque Nationalism Museum

A biography in Spanish.

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