Southern Basque Country

The foundations of Basque home rule were badly shaken at the turn of the 19th century, followed by the short-lived but watershed Spanish nationalist Constitution of 1812 (Cádiz).

[3] At San Sebastián, the Spanish General Prim ratified in 1869 his position in favour of the distinct status held by the Southern Basque Country (the Sister Provinces) conditioned on their unambiguous attachment to Spain.

The 1876 definite abolition of the charters (fueros) was followed by a political stir leading to the popular uprising Gamazada centred in Navarre (1893–94), echoed in Biscay (Gernika) by the Sanrocada, and attempts started to be made to re-establish a single political status for the Basque territories in Spain, with the most significant being the Statute of Estella, 1932 (in Spanish) in the early period of the 2nd Spanish Republic.

The split allegiances showed by Gipuzkoa-Biscay (labelled by the regime as "traitor provinces" (in Spanish)) and Navarre-Álava in the face of the 1936 military uprising undermined the pre-war ties, but did not break them completely, especially in respect of culture.

The rise of the party UPN in Navarre has resulted in an increased denial of the territory's historic Basque identity, and the cancellation or impracticality of virtually all drafted or existing common projects with the rest of Basque territories, e.g. high-speed railway (original X layout blueprint), Basque-Navarrese intergovernmental cooperation organ, federation of savings banks, Aquitaine-Basque Autonomous Community-Navarre cross-border agency, public allowances to publishing other than Navarre-only topics, prohibition of four or seven-province maps in education, ad hoc refusal of permission for reception in Navarre to Basque public broadcaster EITB, etc.