**4. Concluding Remarks: Changing Transnational Religious Mediations in a Post-Violent Basque Country**

This article has sought to demonstrate that the involvement of transnational Catholic institutions in peacemaking in the Basque case should not be assessed only through its tangible outcomes. The strategies of Basque actors involved in the process followed symbolic and semantic aims as well as operational ends in terms of intermediation. Involving transnational secular and religious actors was a way for the parties in the conflict to impose their views on peace and on implicit comparisons with other ethnonationalist conflicts that were resolved by transnational mediation. In that respect, this article has distinguished the transnational, indirect, and informal political work conducted by the Basque regional governmen<sup>t</sup> alongside the hierarchy of the transnational Catholic Church, from the work performed by other Basque political parties and peace movements. In the post-ETA scenario, the end of political violence in the Basque Country also put an end to the role of the Church as a backchannel of communication. Once the "negative peace" had been reached with the end of armed violence, the process entered a new stage consisting in building a "positive peace", dealing with the problems of post-violence, with victims, and with memory and reconciliation (Brewer et al. 2011, p. 40). On these issues, the local church, probably more than its transnational counterpart, would have its say, alongside the secular peace movements, political parties, and civil society organizations.

Nonetheless, the new political scenario did not put an end to relations between the transnational Church and the Basque political, institutional, and social actors. The Basque government, in particular, maintained its old relations with the Holy See but redirected the political work of mediation towards new emergencies, notably the post-2015 displaced persons and refugee crisis. In January 2017, Iñigo Urkullu, President of the Basque government, presented to Mons. Pietro Parolin, State Secretary of

<sup>26</sup> Ibid.

<sup>27</sup> In a previous work, I proposed to identify at least four positions within the Church of the Basque Country toward the conflict resolution: legalist, soft legalist, alternative, and deliberative (anonymized, chapter 6).

<sup>28</sup> M. Malzac, "Le rôle de l'Eglise dans le désarmement de l'ETA", *La Croix*, 11 April 2018.

the Holy See, the 2017–2020 Living Together and Human Rights plan (*Plan de Convivencia y Derechos Humanos*) of the Basque government. The Plan, which resulted from the PNV-PSE governing agreemen<sup>t</sup> signed in 2016, no longer gave priority to the end of ETA terrorism but, rather, to the refugee crisis in Europe.<sup>29</sup> By doing so, the government, which had been a pioneer in social policies since its inception, put pressure on the Spanish governmen<sup>t</sup> to show greater involvement in assistance to refugees. Presenting this plan to the Vatican took on a double meaning. First, it made sense in the traditional paradiplomacy of the Basque government. In substance, the communication channel with the Holy See was facilitated by the social sensitivity of Pope Francis. Urkullu also met Jesuits and Sant'Egidio, two Catholic bodies that had been involved in the peacemaking e ffort in the Basque conflict and that were now on the frontline of the refugee and migrant crisis.<sup>30</sup> In August 2019, the *lehendakari* presented before the Holy See the "Share" proposal, related to refugees and migrants in very vulnerable situations. "Share" was a proposal put forward by various European substate governments<sup>31</sup> and transmitted to EU authorities. It followed previous initiatives, such as humanitarian corridors, conducted by the Basque governmen<sup>t</sup> in collaboration with civil society organizations, among them those related to the social branches of the Church.<sup>32</sup> In a firmly secularized society, such as that of the Basque Country in the 21st century, one emergency was progressively replaced by another, but local and global religious actors kept their mediating role in a pluralistic civil society.

**Funding:** Part of this research was funded by the Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Commission, which allowed a 24-month stay at the European University Institute in Florence in 2012–2013.

**Acknowledgments:** The author acknowledges Jeff Haynes for his invitation, Andy Smith and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions, all the persons who agreed to be interviewed, Jose María Muñoa for providing access to his personal archive, *La Maison de la Traduction* and the Editorial o ffice of *Religions* for the linguistic revision of this article.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
