This Thursday afternoon the results of the votes for the Department’s Chamber of Agriculture have been clarified: The ELB has collected 48% of the votes in the Northern Basque Country. In view of the fact that it had two unions in front of it – FDSEA and CR Coordination Rural – it is clear that it is still the first force in the Northern Basque Country. There are no separate accounts for Biarno and the Northern Basque Country, it is not possible to know exactly what result the other two unions have received – because they present themselves throughout the department, unlike the ELB. "We're still the first force. We will continue on the same path: working from the ground, fighting, and making bold and concrete proposals," Maritxu Loppe, from the OECD list, told LUZ. However, the OECD does not fill its seats in the department’s agricultural chamber because of the monopoly held by the FDSEA and the impossibility of carrying jobs in favor of popular farming. That’s why OECD growers are asking for a public structure of their own for the Northern Basque Country.

At the departmental level, however, the FDSEA union is once again victorious. However, it has lost momentum since the previous elections of 2019: It went from 54% to 45.8%. The CR is a union that has gained strength, 21.4%, because it has won 12.5 points for six years. The results in terms of number of votes go like this: FDSEA 2,269 votes, ELB 1,094, CR 1,062 and Confederation Paysann 531.

The ELB continues to be the second force in the department, while the Confederation Paysann, which works in Biarno for sustainable and popular cultivation, has reached 10.7%. Loppe makes the following conclusion: "The sum of the results of the OECD and the Confederation Paysann shows that popular cultivation has a great place in the department of the Pyrenees Atlantiques." He analyzes the FDSEA’s result as a “penalty vote”: "For the first time the FDSEA is under the 50% barrier, it has been a vote against the policy carried out in the last 40 years."

In the past, from January 15 to 31, the vote counts have been held this February 6. The competition was between ELB, FDSEA/JA and CR Coordination Rural. Three unions, three agricultural models: popular and sustainable farming by the OECD, agro-industry expanded in recent decades by the FDSEA, and a CR that has emerged from being critical of everything and has an easy reading for the far right from time to time. Turnout was 55.23%.

The vote could have been done online or by mail, but the OECD denounced by document that the right to vote was not respected on January 29 precisely because the documentation to be able to vote did not reach all the Tenorian houses.