Basque leader accepts ruling regarding referendum

The president of Spain's troubled Basque region said Friday he respects a court ruling that bars a referendum on self-determination, but he likened it to stifling people's right to express an opinion.

"We face an unprecedented situation in 21st-century Europe, where consulting with society is common," Juan Jose Ibarretxe said, reading from a statement.

He called on the Basque people and its political parties to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to take Spain to task over the court decision.

Ibarretxe, a Basque nationalist, was the driving force behind the nonbinding referendum he had called for Oct. 25.

The referendum was to put two questions to voters: do they support negotiations with the armed Basque separatist group ETA, if it ends violence, and do they think Basque political parties should work toward an agreement on the right of the Basque people to decide their own future.

The Spanish government appealed to the Constitutional Court shortly after the Basque parliament approved the referendum blueprint in July.

The Madrid government had described the vote as a veiled push for outright independence for a region that already enjoys a great degree of autonomy, with power over its finances, its own police force and control over education and cultural issues.

Ibarretxe has called the vote a "consultation" rather than a referendum, and insisted it was not unconstitutional because it was not binding.

But Spain's Constitutional Court, the country's highest tribunal, ruled unanimously Thursday night that he cannot go ahead with it.

The court said only Spain's central government can convene referendums and that the issue this one wanted to raise _ the possibility of changing the Basque region's relationship with the rest of Spain _ is something that all Spaniards would have to decide on, not just Basques.

Ibarretxe said the court was acting for political reasons "disguised in a legal veneer."

He called the ruling "something deeper than an attack on Basque self-government, because in reality what we are facing is the inability to express an opinion."