Politics

Promoters behind a Basque pro-independence party that was granted legal status by a High Court ruling said the "legalization of Sortu is great news" for the Basque Country and signifies "the definitive overcoming of the cycle of illegalization and the end of the old formulas in order to face a new political time".

Spain's Constitutional court on Wednesday accepted a legalization appeal that granted political status to the banned Basque nationalist left-wing party Sortu, smoothing the way for the pro-independence party to field candidates in the upcoming Basque Country elections.

Sortu had been denied legal status ahead of a local election in 2011 in the Basque Country by Spain's Supreme Court. According to the Court, newly formed political party Sortu, that said it rejected violence by the armed group ETA, was the successor to Batasuna, a banned political party linked to the armed Basque group ETA.

Speaking in a press conference held in Bilbao one day after the ruling was announced, Sortu lawyers Iñigo Iruin and Adolfo Araiz showed their gratitude to all those people who collectively or individually, from the Basque Country or outside of the Basque Country, have accompanied" them.

They also announced that they will "put in march the constitutive process of Sortu", beginning "the conformation of the militancy of Sortu through the figure of 'Sortzailes'."