Statements by the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, today, May 13, at ASLE’s 40th anniversary event

The lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, has the “cooperative economy”, “sum of forces” and the “Auzolana” philosophy as a means of coping with “the storms we are going through”, referring to the global uncertainty that has arisen after the war in Ukraine.

Urkullu participated this Friday in the opening of the General Assembly of the ASLE Business Association of Labor Companies, held in Vitoria-Gasteiz on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of this entity. The event was attended by Labor and Employment Minister Idoia Mendia, who called for a “lease” between companies and unions so that “no one loses” in these “tough times and major transformations”.

According to the Lehendakari, the ASLE association, which has been working since 1979 to promote this workforce for the creation of companies in the Basque Country, is “the best exponent” of that “economy of cooperation” which also fits “with the values ​​and priorities of the Basque model”, which, in his words, “capacity for self-government, territorial roots of the vast majority of companies, strong weight of the economy and a strong civil society “.

Urkullu has discussed the “two and a half years of great difficulty”, a story that started with a “sincere memory” of Alberto Sololuze and Joaquín Beltrán, workers who died in the detachment of the Zaldibar landfill. Shortly after, “the pandemic was officially declared, caused by an unknown virus that has caused millions of deaths and an unprecedented economic, social, health and emotional crisis,” he said.

According to the Lehendakari, during these two years of “vortex” the Basque institutions “acted closely, trying to maintain a balance in the decisions, sometimes with uncertainty and with shortcomings, but always with an attitude proactiveand with a desire to provide “institutional stability” in the face of the “environment of high tension and political tension in the state”.

In economic-social affairs, he recalled that the Basque institutions injected more than 5,000 million extraordinary resources to “harmonize social cohesion and economic development”.

On the “global uncertainty” created by the war in Ukraine, wanted to recall the “thousands of deaths and refugees”, as well as the impact on the economy and the escalation of inflation, “we still don’t know how it will evolve.” Therefore, he stressed that the Basque government has worked “with two hands” with the Isuri funds and the economic rescue fund, and emphasized that despite “the storms we are going through, the Basque Country is still going”.

Mendia pleads for ‘rental agreement’

For its part, Second Deputy Lehendakari and Minister of Labor and Employment, Idoia Mendia, warned of the need for “social agents, employers and unions to agree on rents, agree on a mechanism so no one losesneither when things go well, nor when things get worse.” “Agree on a mechanism so that no one loses, neither when things go well, nor when things get worse”.

In her speech, the minister cited labor companies as an example of companies that “replace confrontation with cooperation so that everyone wins”, and assured that these companies “are a good mirror to look at yourself”.

According to Media, ASLE . is “a reference” of an economic model based on “rooted companies and open to the world, seeking to make profits and reinvest them in innovation and employment”; that they function in a “democratic” manner; and in which the workers are “the guarantee of success”.