Kraj Basków – sytuacja gospodarcza i polityka rozwoju

Gdy w Polsce lansuje się obraz gospodarki Kraju Basków jako modelowej, okazuje się, że niewiele o niej wiadomo. Niniejszy artykuł ma na celu prezentację i analizę fenomenu baskijskiej ekonomii, która łącząc tradycję i nowoczesność, potrafiła poradzić sobie ze światowym kryzysem, stając się prawdziwą „zieloną wyspą” na terenie Królestwa Hiszpanii z bezrobociem najniższym w kraju. Przedstawiono podstawowe filary (spółdzielczość, parki technologiczne, klastry), na których Baskowie oparli swój rozwój gospodarczy, a także plany międzysektorowego rozwoju.

Spain is not quite a federal state but each of its autonomous communities has different history, language, cultural heritage, natural resources and different level of autonomy. Thanks to that the Spanish Kingdom is a very interesting testing ground for scientists analyzing an influence of the global tendencies on development of regions and trying to describe its determinants. Autonomous Community of the Basque Country is well known mostly due to separatist movements of Basques but very little due to its economy. Meanwhile thanks to its autonomy the local government use very well their local strengths to resist global crisis that has affected so strongly on Spanish economy. The methods they use confirm that the influence of globalization on local development can be different and depend on people and their territory. Basques are open for new technologies but still very faithful to their own traditions and mix it in their own peculiar fashion. As in Poland solutions from the Basque Country are shown as examples to follow this paper aims to describe them and show how globalization takes a toll on a region, and how this region creates the level of acceptance of this toll. The paper also shows what are those Basques solutions and tries to explain its uniqueness.