Basque

If France loses against Spain, at least it can console itself by recovering Spanish territory in the Basque Country. Will do it in 16 days

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If France loses against Spain in the World Cup semi-finalsin just 16 days you will have a little consolation. Yes, on August 1 it will recover, in a completely peaceful and automatic manner, the administration of a Spanish territory in the heart of the Basque Country. It will not be a sporting revenge or a conquest, but rather the replacement planned for more than a century and a half of Pheasant Islanda tiny islet that has become one of the most unusual symbols of peace in Europe. A curious “revenge”. While Spain and France once again measure their strength on the playing field, there is a place where the rivalry between both countries is resolved in a way much less common. If the French are defeated, the calendar reserves them a curious compensation: next August 1 they will take over for six months the administration of Pheasant Island, an islet located in the Bidasoa River, between Irun and Hendaye. In essence, it does not change ownership or nationality in the strict sense, but it does authority changes who manages it, in a ritual that has been repeated every year with almost clockwork precision since the 19th century. As small as it is enormous in symbolism. Pheasant Island is barely between 130 and 200 meters long and its surface changes slightly depending on the riverbed, oscillating between about 2,000 and 6,800 square meters. It is completely uninhabited, closed to the public almost all year round and does not even house pheasants, despite what its name indicates. However, its historical importance is immense because for centuries it was the setting chosen to resolve some of the most delicate diplomatic episodes between the Spanish and French crowns. Meeting of Louis XIV and Philip IV on Pheasant Island in 1660 (Meeting of the two kings on Pheasant Island, painting by Jacques Laumosnier) The islet that ended a war. Long before becoming a shared territory, the island was already considered an neutral ground. There the exchange of King Francis I of France for his children took place in 1526 after the battle of pavia and, decades later, the exchange of princesses between both monarchies. But the decisive episode came in 1659, when Spain and France negotiated and signed in that same place. the Treaty of the Pyreneesthe agreement that ended more than two decades of war and established much of the border that both countries continue to share today. A year later, the island also hosted the wedding between Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Philip IV, definitively becoming a symbol of reconciliation. In 1861, the two neighboring countries erected a monument on the island in commemoration of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The solution was to share it forever. That symbolic value ended up legally crystallizing almost two centuries later. The Treaty of Bayonne of 1856 established that the island would belong “individually” to both countries, giving rise to what is usually considered the smallest condo of the world. Since then, Spain administers the islet between February 1 and July 31, while France does the same between August 1 and January 31. The handover is not simply administrative: authorities from both countries celebrate an official ceremony in which the transfer is formalized, maintaining a tradition that has been carried out without interruptions for more than 160 years. There are others, but none of them work like that. The concept of international condominium is not exclusive to Pheasant Island. There are other territories jointly administered, such as some river areas between Germany and Luxembourg, the Gulf of Fonseca shared by Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, the Brcko district in Bosnia and Herzegovina or even Antarctica under the Antarctic Treaty. However, none of them reproduces a system as striking as that of Bidasoa: a strict alternation every six months, ceremonial and perfectly regulated, in which management passes from one country to the other without disputes, claims or diplomatic tensions. An example of cooperation. The idyllic image of the islet contrasts with some of the current problems on the Franco-Spanish border. In recent years the Bidasoa River has become at a passing point for numerous migrants trying to reach France, and several of them have lost their lives trying to cross its waters. This reality reminds us that the border continues to be a sensitive spacealthough precisely for this reason Pheasant Island retains an even greater value: it demonstrates that a territory born of a war can be transformed, over generations, into a mechanism of peaceful cooperation. The biggest victory between the two was never played in a stadium. Semifinals, finals and sports rivalries always end with a winner and a loser. Pheasant Island represents just the opposite. It was born from one of the great European conflicts of the 17th century, but today it works thanks to an agreement that neither of the two countries questions and that is renewed twice a year with absolute normality. Therefore, if France ends up falling today against Spain, it will always be able to say that the defeat was short-lived: Just sixteen days later you will once again administer a small piece of territory located between both countries, the same place where centuries ago they decided that the best way to end a war was to learn to share the map. Image | ZaratemanJacques Laumosnier, Iñaki LL In Xataka | Spain does not wait for France: it is studying a huge submarine cable with distant Ireland to stop being an energy island In Xataka | It’s in France and the sea swallows it twice a day: this is the road where you risk your car if you don’t look at the clock

90 years ago a Basque company decided to manufacture the “Rolls-Royce of staplers”. It hasn’t gone particularly well

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What do they have in common the MoMA, Vladimir Putinthe former Colombian president Andres Pastrana and the veteran reporter Gillian de Bonowho for decades dedicated himself to advising wealthy readers of Financial Times How to spend your money in style? The answer is only two characters long: M5the Basque brand stapler The Helmet. His name may not ring a bell, but it sure does. your imageneat, efficient, sophisticated. So much so that it has elevated the stapler to the category of art worthy of the desks of leaders and museums. Despite all that and its centuries-old history, El Casco has not managed to avoid bankruptcy. After declare bankruptcynow his legacy is sold to the highest bidder. The art of putting together pages. Life offers us many kinds of pleasures, but there is one that we did not know about until the Basque company El Casco got to work: collecting papers. This was recognized a few years ago, Gillian de Bonothe veteran reporter of the How I spend it (‘How I spend it’) from the diary Financial Times. In 2017, after testing the M5 stapler from the Guipuzcoan company, recognized to his readers that he had never enjoyed stapling papers so much. It hasn’t been the only one. The design, efficiency and above all the elegance of El Casco staplers (the M5 is perhaps the most famous and exclusive, but in the catalog of the company there are many more models) has led them to such unexpected places such as the collection of the MoMA museum in New York or the desks of Vladimir Putin and Andrés Pastrana, as well as the offices of executives from around the world. After all, stapling report sheets may be a mundane task, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done glamorously. “The Roll-Royce of staplers”. Perhaps the best definition of the M5 was given years ago by designer Juli Capella. For him, remember The Countrythe Basque creation is something like “the Rolls-Royce of staplers.” It may sound like an exaggeration, but the phrase is better understood if several factors are taken into account. First, the design of the article, which has allowed it to be passed from parents to children in many cases and continue to fulfill its function. just like decades ago. Second, its history: the company behind it traces its origins to before the Civil War. Third, its exclusivity (and prices): in its online catalog You can find different models ranging from 150 to almost 400 euros. And yet… All of the above guarantees El Casco staplers a privileged place in the history of national design, but that does not mean that at a business level they have to do well. On the contrary. The passing of the decades, the change of habits, digitalization and competition of articles low cost Asia is over taking its toll to the company, unable to balance its accounts. At the beginning of the year, Tuncalya, the Eibar-based company behind the El Casco brand, declared bankruptcy and months later, in May, was auctioned most of the machinery and facilities that allowed it to manufacture its staplers. Brands, domains and know-how. Now comes the second (and final) chapter of its corporate epilogue. As I remembered a few days ago The Mailthis week the other part of his business legacy is auctioned: around twenty trademark registrations in different countries, the know-how accumulated after decades of activity, its commercial fund and a series of web domains that will remain valid at least until October 2026 or 2030. The bid is organized by Pacelma Auctions, it comes out in a single Lope with a starting price of 50,000 euros and is part of the bankruptcy procedure supervised by a court in San Sebastián. More than just design. Although what probably made Putin, Pastrana and Bono fall in love with it is the design of the staplers, El Casco stands out for another reason: its history. The roots of the company must be found in the Basque Country of the 20when Juan Olave and Juan Solozabal (former Orbea employees) founded a business in Éibar that was initially dedicated to weapons. After a few years marked by the Great Depression and the Civil War, the company decided to focus on office supplies. What didn’t change was his mentality. “A staple should move through the stapler with the same precision as a bullet through the barrel of a revolver,” explains Joan Solozábal, grandson of the founder. Against all odds. Throughout its extensive history, the firm has encountered the occasional crisis. In 1937, just a few years after it began manufacturing stationery, the business suffered the blow of the Civil War: the town suffered bombings that left the company damaged. Over time, it was able to resume its activity, it was equipped with a larger factory and, already in the 60s, it gathered around 200 employees. The crises of the following decades, digitalization and competition from low cost However, they undermined his business. In 2014 the company was forced to bankruptcya delicate situation that was saved thanks to the Turkish investor (and former client of the firm) Bayrak Vedak. Their disembarkation gave a boost of oxygen to the Gipuzkoan company, but it has not allowed them to fully weather the storm. Twelve years after that critical episode and despite attempts to refocus the business, the firm declared bankruptcy at the beginning of 2026. Now its future remains in the air. Images | The Helmet and Wikipedia In Xataka | What happened to Barreiros, the Spanish automotive company that manufactured Dodges “made in Spain” in the second half of the 20th century

This is the Basque project that wants to convert waves into cheap electricity

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On May 12, a 42-meter steel buoy was towed from the Bilbao estuary to the open sea off Armintza. It is not the first time he has made that trip. It already did it in 2016, endured three winters with waves of up to 14 meters, generated electricity and returned to port with something equally valuable: data. Now it comes back improved. The Basque firm IDOM has released the Marmok A-5 again in the Cantabrian Sea, and this time he knows exactly what he has to prove. It’s not just another test. The promise of wave energy is not small. As he explains to the magazine Renewable Energies IDOM wave engineer, Patxi Etxaniz: “The amount of resources available worldwide is brutal; if we are able to obtain that energy in an economically profitable way, we have solved the global energy problem.” The problem, until now, has always been the same: extract it without ruining yourself in the attempt. The race to achieve this is fought by just a dozen or fifteen actors around the world: the Swedish CorPower, several Scottish engineering companies, companies from France, Wales, Finland and Italy, and Asian actors from Korea, China and Japan who, in the words of Etxaniz, “do not publish anything, they are very discreet.” IDOM is already in that group. The Cantabrian piston. The Marmok is, in essence, a buoy with a cylinder of water inside. As detailed Europe Wavewhen a wave arrives, that column of water rises and falls like a piston, compressing and expanding the air in an upper chamber. In this way, this air flow moves a turbine that generates electricity and, finally, an underwater cable takes it to land. The technology is called OWC – oscillating water column – and the new Marmok has improved it on three fronts, according to BiMEP: new turbine with controllable blades, intelligent control system with onboard batteries, and radically simplified anchoring. This latest change was born directly from one of the most costly and dangerous problems of the first campaign. As Etxaniz explained: “The anchorage we had worked well, but we needed a lot of divers, and they are expensive, and their work is dangerous: underwater, with ropes with a lot of tension, one of them whips you and you can have a serious problem.” Problem detected, problem solved. In this new campaign, in addition, the Marmok will connect to the grid for the first time through the HarshLab platform, a floating laboratory integrated into the BiMEP infrastructure, which will allow both to evacuate the energy generated and to monitor the behavior of the system in real time. Twelve years of work. The Marmok did not appear overnight. Its first models were tested at the El Pardo Hydrodynamic Experience Center in 2012. From there they went to the Tecnalia laboratories, then to the BiMEP offshore facilities in Mutriku, and finally to the open sea in October 2016, where it became the first wave energy converter connected to the electrical grid in Spain and one of the first in the world. Behind that journey was the team from the Basque company Oceantec. IDOM saw the potential, hired them en bloc and integrated them into its structure. More than a decade of work, financing from the Basque Energy Agency and support from the European innovation program EuropeWave later, what began as a laboratory prototype is today, according to BiMEPa device ready to advance towards pre-commercial phases. As Borja de Miguel, project manager at IDOM, summarizes: in statements collected by Europe Wave: “Achieving secure installation and grid connection at BiMEP is a key step in bringing wave energy closer to commercial reality.” What’s coming Over the next few months, the team will verify the performance of the new systems and progressively increase operations. The data collected by this campaign will serve two purposes: demonstrate results to EuropeWave and decide what the next phase of development will look like. The objective is not academic. It means lowering costs until a Cantabrian wave can compete, in price, with any other energy source. There is no date for that yet. “It will depend on the investment,” says Etxaniz. But the window exists, the group of applicants is small, and Basque engineering has been learning to read the sea for more than ten years. The Marmok already knows how to survive three stormy winters. Now you have to learn how to do it cheaply. Image | EuropeWave Xataka | For years, wave energy was the ugly duckling of renewables. AI and data centers have taken a turn

Moving ‘Guernica’ requires a complex and dangerous operation for the painting. Now the Basque Government wants to do it

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‘Guernica’ is an unusual painting in many aspects. Its history is. It is he tour that took him to several continents during his first decades. And so is its size, much (very) larger than the vast majority of paintings that hang in museums. This sum of factors explains why it is now at the center of a bitter controversy. The Basque Country wants to temporarily take it from Madrid to Bilbao to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the bombing which inspired Picasso, but its current custodian, the Reina Sofía, believes it is a bad idea. The debate is served. What has happened? That the Basque Government wants ‘Guernica’, probably Pablo Picasso’s most famous work, finally exposed in Euskadi. A few days ago, during a meeting with the Minister of Culture, the vice lehendakari Ibone Bengoetxea requested the Government to temporarily transfer the painting to the Guggenheim in Bilbao. She wasn’t the only one. The same request Lehendakari Imanol Pradales has transferred it to the President of the Government. The idea is that ‘Guernica’ ends up in Basque lands nine monthsfrom October 2026 to June 2027. After that period, he would return to what has been his home since the beginning of the 1990s, the Reino Sofía Museum in Madrid, where he acts as the main attraction, capturing tens of thousands of visitors. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why is it important? Because of its symbolic load. ‘Guernica’ is not just any painting. Picasso painted it between May and June 1937 in his workshop on Rue des Grands-Augustins, Paris, commissioned by the Government of the Republic. The work is also inspired by one of the most disastrous episodes of the Civil War: the bombing of the town of Guernica (Vizcaya) at the end of April 1937 by the Condor Legion and the Italian Legionary Aviation. Although during its first decades it was the protagonist of an intense journey that took it through a good part of Europe, North America and South America, the work did not land in Spain until September 1981. Some historians like The Barroquistahave interpreted his arrival as “the symbolic return of the last exile.” And why is it news? That Euskadi wants it to be exhibited in Bilbao right now, between October 2026 and June 2027, is no coincidence. It would coincide with the 90th anniversary of the constitution of the first regional Executive and the bombing of Guernica. Hence Bengoetxea has insisted in the “deep historical, symbolic and emotional meaning” that the transfer would have for the Basque people. Will it be possible? Of course it won’t be easy. Just one day after the meeting between Bengoetxea and the Minister of Culture, the Reina Sofía Museum published a report of 16 pages in which he “strongly advises against” the transfer of the painting from Madrid to the Basque Country. The reason: the process could damage it. “The work is kept in stable conditions thanks to rigorous control of the environmental conditions. However, in view of a possible transfer, its format, nature of the elements that compose it and state of conservation, together with the numerous damages suffered over time, make it especially sensitive to all types of vibrations that are inevitable in transporting works of art.” Does it say anything else? Yes. In case there are any doubts, underlines: “Such vibrations could generate new cracks, lifting and loss of the pictorial layer, as well as tears in the support.” The opinion of the Reina Sofía of course has not pleased the Basque Government, dissatisfied with both the substance and the form. “It would be serious for a formal request from a government to be responded to without a serious and in-depth analysis. The order must be an analysis of the needs so that the painting can be in Euskadi temporarily,” claims Bengoetxea. The regional Executive emphasizes that this is not a simple technical issue. In the background, they insist, there are much deeper readings that affect “memory” and “repair.” The vice lehendakari first complaint and that at the moment it has not received “any official response” from Moncloa. Is it that surprising? Yes. And no. Everything that revolves around ‘Guernica’ arouses expectation, something understandable if one takes into account that the artistic value of the work is added to its historical and symbolic relevance. However, Reina Sofía herself has been responsible for highlighting that his position is not new. In fact, it has been closing the door to organizations that request a loan for the work for several decades. In 1997 he already said ‘no’ to a request for the painting to be included in the inauguration from the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and that it arrived backed by a report in which “the technical conditions” of the transfer were detailed. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Have there been more cases? In 2000 ddenied a request of MoMA, in 2006 he did the same with the Royal Ontario Museum and in 2007 he rejected another request from the Basque Government. Two years later he again said ‘no’ to the Fuji Group, interested in including the piece in the “50th Anniversary Fuji TV” exhibition, held in Tokyo, and in 2012 he also rejected the request presented by a Korean museum. The painting’s last trips date back a few decades: in 1981 it was packed up at the MoMA for transfer to Spain, where it was first exhibited at the Casón del Buen Retiro and later (from 1992) at the Reina Sofía. There alone the exhibition “Piety and Terror in Picasso”, organized during the 80th anniversary of the work, attracted more than 625,000 visitors. And that in less than half a year. Is it so problematic to move it? The report published by the Reina Sofía Museum not only advises against the transfer of ‘Guernica’. Before reaching that conclusion, he offers a detailed analysis of the current state of the painting, in which he notes “alterations such as cracks, cracks … Read more

There is a Basque company that is making a fortune with an unexpected business: ripening bananas from the Canary Islands

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100 million euros of turnover ripening bananas. It is the objective of Musanorte, a company with Canarian roots and headquarters in Vizcaya that has turned a niche as specific and far from the focus as the controlled ripening of fruit into an economic engine for the Orozko region. Your task is not to grow, but what happens after the harvest. In their facilities, the Canarian banana arrives green and comes out ready to eat. Controlled maturation. What Musanorte does with bananas is a process that much of the fruit goes through that we see in supermarkets. So that the bananas arrive at the stores at their peak, with that bright yellow tone without darkening, they are placed in chambers in which the temperature and ethylene is applied to them. Ethylene is what is known as maturation hormone and it is released by vegetables naturally. By adding it artificially, the process is accelerated. The company. Musanorte is a subsidiary of Mercamusa, a company dedicated to the marketing of fruit that also has a ripening plant in Alicante. In 2017, Mercamusa was purchased by Eurobananaa Canarian company that sought to eliminate intermediaries and thus better control quality while saving costs. Production takes place in the Canary Islands and the peninsular offices are dedicated to ripening and packaging. Capacity and investment. With more than 21 ripening chambers and two packaging lines, Musanorte has the capacity to manage 40,000 tons of bananas per yearwhich are added to the 30,000 tons of capacity of the Alicante plant. The Musanorte plant has been operational since 2020, but it was not until recently that it received an investment of 24 million euros that has allowed it to increase its capacity. They hope to reach 100 million euros in turnover and also have announced the creation of 100 new jobs in the region. The banana crisis. In 2025 the price of Canary Islands bananas skyrocketed, reaching 7 euros per kilo. In September we talked about the crisis that the banana production sector was going through: Producing them cost more than what the farmers, who survived thanks to aid from the European Union, ended up receiving. The situation has improved, but not enoughand currently production costs remain very highwhich strains the profitability of producers. Image | Wikipedia In Xataka | Neither patting nor waving them in the air: the science of choosing a good melon in the supermarket

The Basque Country and Navarra exported 35,700 qualified professionals who would like to return. The problem is how and where

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Companies argue that one of their main problems when it comes to filling job vacancies is find qualified workers. However, the data suggests that these qualified profiles are forced to leave the country for find better opportunities jobs outside Spain. In fact, a recent study by Artizarra Foundation and Deusto Business School puts precise figures on this mismatch between the situation of qualified talent and its reality. Thousands of professionals trained in Spanish universities and with consolidated careers outside the country they would be willing to return, but the system does not offer them a complete attractive setting to return to. The talent that left. According to the reportmore than 42,000 young people between 25 and 40 years old, trained in universities and higher educational centers in the Basque Country and Navarra, currently work outside their territory of origin. These are not profiles in transition: they are highly qualified professionals, with training in engineering, STEM disciplinesbusiness management or research. However, the key data from this report is the return intention of these professionals. More than 85% of the participants in the study affirm that they would like to return if they found working and living conditions comparable to those they have achieved abroad. If this scenario materializes, the study estimates that up to 35,700 qualified professionals could be recovered. A career developed abroad. Six out of every ten professionals consulted have already accumulated more than six years working in other countries, which implies that they already have consolidated professional trajectories there, competitive salaries and international work experience that is difficult to replicate in the short term. From an economic point of view, its impact is relevant. We are not talking about talent in training, but about already qualified personnel, with high technical knowledge and productive capacity that have been trained in public schools and universities in Spain, but that Spanish companies have not known how to retain. This lack of job opportunities is the key to their departure. Ability to train talent, not to retain it. The contrast appears when crossing the data from the Deusto Business School report with the Cotec Foundation Talent Mapwhich analyzes 55 indicators on talent creation, attraction and retention. In its latest edition in 2023, and maintaining the same territorial framework as the Deusto study, the Basque Country reaches 66.4 points, well above the national average (49.1 points) and only behind Madrid (67.7 points). The conclusions drawn from these data are clear. The Basque Country stands out for the quality of your higher educationtechnical qualification and productive environment. The educational system works well in training talent. The problem comes when that training period ends and that talent compares what you find in your country with what is offered outside. They do not return for the same reason they left. The reasons for the flight of talent are recurring: better salaries, greater professional projection, access to cutting-edge projects and, in the case of scientific profiles, more opportunities to develop a stable research career. As and how they point According to the authors of the Deusto Business School report, these factors do not disappear when the return of that talent is considered. On the contrary. Accumulated experience raises expectations and makes those reasons more visible. The study by Artizarra and Deusto identifies barriers that go beyond employment and connect with structural problems common to an entire generation. Return yes, but where. The price and conditions of housing is one of the main reasons that slows the return of this talent. Returning implies assuming high prices, both for rent as for home purchaseand face it with salaries that do not always compensate for the difference compared to other European markets. For those who have already built a life outside, the opportunity cost is high. The second major barrier to return is the quality of employment. Not so much the absence of work for these qualified profiles, but the difficulty for local companies to match salaries, professional autonomy and recognition of talent. The comparison with international markets is inevitable. A paradox that remains open. The study data supports the spirit of this talent to return because it has not separated itself from its territory and maintains its roots. Most want to return. However, as the authors of the study point out, the biggest problem is an environment that allows doing so without giving up professional and life expectations. From an economic point of view, recovering part of those 35,700 profiles would be an investment that is difficult to match for a labor market that affirms that the shortage of skilled labor It is the stone that prevents them from moving forward. As Joe Biden once said: “Pay Them More“. In Xataka | Spain has such good nurses that it exports them to other countries. The problem is that public health needs 100,000 Image | Unsplash (Philipp hubert)

Tourism of juice and sandwich expands through the Basque Country French

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“I had never seen so many people doing picnic on the beach!” The phrase is from Sébastien Meric, manager of the Taverne Basque, a restaurant of Saint-Jean-de-Luzin Nueva Aquitaine (France), and although a priori it may seem a positive comment hides a feeling that worries the hoteliers of this village of the Atlantic Pyrenees as well as those of Other destinations From Spain: they arrive (almost) as many tourists as in 2024, but they think about it much more when it comes to their portfolios. And that is a problem. What happened? That with the summer campaign already advanced, the hoteliers of San Juan de Luz, a small commune of France famous for its traditional beaches, port and architecture, recognize having a bittersweet taste. It is not so much that tourists have stopped visiting the town and that they no longer do it with the same joy. So I know They recognized A few professionals recently to the newspaper Sud Ouestto which they admit their concern about what is promised a “mediocre” summer. Why’s that? To start because Julio has left a puncture in the influx of tourists. According to the Departmental Tourism Agency of the Atlantic Pyrenees, last month the flow of visitors in the Basque Country French descended -1%a fall that was even more pronounced if we talk about overnight (-4%). In the whole of the Atlantic Pyrenees the demand remained stable (+1%) thanks in part to a warmer and dry meteorology of the usual. Sud Ouest Precise That, according to the Julio Tourist Barometer, San Juan de Luz lost about 55,000 visitors, a fall that is largely related to the lower influx of visitors from other parts of Europe with respect to last year (Dutch, Spanish or Germans) but also from travelers from other regions of the country itself, such as Paris or the department of Hauts-de-Seine. From the City of San Juan de Luz, this decline in visitors, which relate to circumstantial factors, reduces importance in any case. “Time has been unpredictable and beaches have been closed by jellyfish,” Clarify The organism, “it is better to wait at the end of summer to draw conclusions.” Is there anything else? Yes. And that is perhaps the most interesting idea than comment The hoteliers of the region A Sud Ouest. Beyond the fluctuations in the influx of travelers, the really curious thing is that businesses perceive a contraction in spending. “Before we made a lobster barbecue per 100 euros, now we make chuletones with blue cheese sauce for three times,” confesses a restaurant, recalling that this is the second summer that does not meet expectations. “Last year we thought it was for the Olympic Games or Bayonne partieswhich coincide with those of Pamplona, ​​but this year is the same. ” detects New habits among veraneantes. “I had never seen so many people doing picnic on the beach!” A third place specifies that this year has encountered an “excess template.” And what is the reason? The big question. The Agite Du Tourism 64 perceive “For the first time in many years” a decrease in the influx of customers with a high level of income (-2%) in the French Basque Country, a trend that the organism believes compensated by an increase in equal extent of the middle-class clientele. The regional press points out other hypotheses, such as a decrease in the purchasing power of tourists or the changes in the legislation that regulates tourist floors. The New standard It puts certain limits to holiday rentals of second residences, which limits their offer and forces tourists to use hotels in which the average price per night in high season, slides Sud Ouestcan perfectly be around 170 euros. A higher expense in the accommodation would leave visitors (especially families) with less margin when it comes to allowing other extras during their vacations, such as meals or dinners in restaurants. Why is it important? Although Saint-Jean-de-Luz is located in France his data and especially the testimony of his hoteliers are interesting because they show us another perspective of tourism. One that is not exclusive to Atlantic Pyrenees. He last balance The INE reveals a considerable rise in the total spending of international tourists (+5.5%) and the average daily expenditure, but in some regions there are also hoteliers who have alerted a billing drop. They did recently in Diario de Mallorcathe hoteliers of Port de Sóller, in Mallorca, where they have detected a puncture of the demand in full high season. “We have gone from not having workers to overcome us,” admits the owner of two restaurants that he has had to do without employees. “This is a rebound effect after the madness after Covid. We return to the situation we had before the pandemic, but with much narrower margins.” Images | Tourisme Pays Basque Office (Flickr) and Cylk34 (Flickr) In Xataka | The north of Spain has been complaining about mass tourism for years. Asturias has discovered the bitter consequences of losing it

If their spies spoke Basque as a secret code

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The espionage stories They are fascinating. Video games like Spanish ‘Commandos‘They have one of their best characters in the spy and the sagas of’Impossible mission‘ either ‘007‘are sustained (At least in the first deliveries) in that work of espionage and Double agents. Something fundamental is the encryption of conversations, but … why devise a complex system so that the enemy does not discover what you speak if they exist languages ​​that do not speak so many people? In Spain there is one that is homeless: The Basque. And, precisely, one of the legends of the spies Spaniards is the use of Basque so that enemies do not discover the plans. But as usually happens, there is as much reality as a myth in this story. Felipe II’s networks. Let’s start at the beginning and one of the clearest uses of Basque in a espionage network. In the second half of the 16th century, things in Spain were uneasy. The reason was that Henry III of Navarra, king of Navarra since 1572, had religious ideas contrary to the Spanish monarch Felipe II. While Felipe was a staunch Catholic, Enrique became Protestantism. The problem is that in 1589 Enrique III of France and ‘Our’ Enrique III inherited the French throne as Henry IV. Felipe did not make a hint of grace because he did not want a Protestant to occupy the throne of a great neighboring country and, as a defender of Catholicism and Spanish hegemony, supported the Catholic League and proposed to his daughter Isabelgranddaughter of Enrique II of France, as queen of the Gallic country. He did not set the proposal and that caused a rivalry that made the Pyrenean situation complex. Lady of Urtubia. Enrique, in the end, returned to the path of Catholicism in 1593, so things have already calmed down and was recognized in full as king of France. Now, although Enrique IV’s conversion calmed the situation, the tension did not disappear at all, and our spy comes into play: Aimée de Urtubia. This woman belonging to the nobility shipment Between 1597 and 1598, at least 19 letters to the mayor of Fuenterrabía and Captain General of Guipúzcoa. In them there was relevant information about military and political events in France and Navarra during the Religion wars and allowed the Catholics of Felipe II to record the situation in France. The peculiarity is that the letters were written in Basque, which assured that they would only be “decipherd” if they fell into someone who controlled the language. And it was his native language, detail that is not less. In whatever, their letters were referred to the Secretary General for the North, which speaks well of the importance that the information of the ‘Lady of Urtubia’ had in the strategy of the administration of Felipe II. In 1598 the Paz de Vervins with which Felipe stopped intervening in French affairs. Although the agreement had not been reached, Felipe would not have interfered with more because he died that year. Second World War. There is proof of Aimée’s letters, but … the legend of the Basque among the Spanish spies comes from there? Well, not quite. Time to make a leap to Second World War. Spies are key to operations such as day d or even for war stratagems that confuse the enemy. The Enigma machine It was the great Nazi tool to encrypt messages and Basque … too? Myth. The United States, of course, considered the use of little known languages ​​to make secret communications. Instead of creating language, Americans used Native American languages ​​such as Navajo or CREE to generate safe messages. It would be rare for a German to speak Navajo, go. And, to expand networks in Europe, they also thought of the ‘Basque Code Talkers‘. This was basically reused Euskera to produce indecipherable messages for the enemy. To the Not being an Indo -European languageor the enemy had a dictionary, or would not find out anything. In fact, some publications of years ago affirm that Basque was used as a code in the battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. The problem is that it is … false. And reality. A subsequent investigation carried out by historians Pedro J. Oiarzabal and Guillermo Taberilla, demonstrated that Americans may consider the use of Basque as ‘Code Talk’, but it was not carried out. Investigating American and British military archives, they did not find that they support the use of Basque in that context. American captain Frank Carranza, grandson of Basque emigrants, would have been one of the architects of the legend, supported by the historical fact of the relationship between the secret services of the Basque Government In exile and the OSS American. Now, something that could feed the myth is that there were Basque spies involved in the conflict. José Laradogoitia Menchaca, or “Bromine”, He was a Basque pastor who worked as a double agent during the war. For whom? First for the Nazis, but then he went to the allied side, transmitting false information to the Nazis. And the investigation of Oiarzabal and Tabernilla, regardless of denying the myth, He left a pearl: Vicelehendakari of the Basque Government in exile worked as a spy for the British. In the end, Basque soldiers may speak in Basque between them and I find it funny to think that some Nazi intercepted that communication and gave mental somersaults trying to decipher the ‘code’. Image | Screen of ‘Call of Duty ww2’ In Xataka | The US landed on an empty island during World War II. In nine days it had more than 300 casualties

A Basque startup of AI has just lifted 189 million euros with a great idea: compress the AI

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Before We compressed files with Zip. Now what we begin to need is to compress the AI ​​to make it more small and efficient. That is just the idea that the founders of Multivrse Computing had, a Spanish startup which is becoming the new jewel of the crown of our AI industry. Its founders, (in the image, from left to right, Román Orús, Enrique Lizaso Olmos and Samuel Mugel) and Alfonso Rubio have much to celebrate. Investment Round. Multivize Computing He has just closed an investment round of 189 million euros (215 million dollars). The round (series B) has been led by Bullhound Capital, but it has also participated HP Tech Ventures, Sett, ForgePoint Capital International, CDP Venture Capital, Santander Climate VC, Quantonation, Toshiba and Euskadi Risk Capital of Euskadi – Spri Group. Last March the company received An investment of 67 million euros by the Government of Spain. The inference AI by flag. Although the current prominence usually takes it the great technological ones that invest billions of dollars in data centers to train Great language models (LLM)there is more and more focus on the other part: the one we use users when asking things to Chatgpt, for example. It is the so -called AI inference, and the estimate is that in 2025 the value of that industry reaches 106,000 million dollars. In Multivrse Computing they want a good piece of that cake, and to achieve this, its great trick is a unique technology. Compactifai. This is the name of The compression technology of AI models developed by multivance computing. What this allows is to convert very large models – which costs a lot to “execute” – in much smaller and efficient models, which allows them to make them more manageable and save many resources (and time) during inference. How to compress an AI model. Román Orús, scientific director of the company, led A study May 2024 in which they precisely explained the concept of “tensioning networks” of quantum inspiration and that allow compressing these models. Its operation is based on decomposing the matrices of pesos from the neural networks “truncating them” and retaining only the largest and most relevant values. In essence the concept focuses on discarding the less relevant information of the model to be left alone with the most relevant. But that does not make the model less accurate? In fact, but the degree of truncation can be controlled so that there is a good balance and commitment between compression and loss of precision. Even by compressing these models, in Multivars Computing they say The fall of the models It is only 2 to 3%. Same yield in a size 95% lower. To mitigate that precision fall, this system includes a rapid resentment phase called “healing” that can be repeated several times to achieve even closer accuracy to the original version. In the end, they affirm in the company, they can compress up to 95% a model of the performance. It lowers the use of AI. According to Your dataa model as it calls 3.1 405b has an operational cost of about $ 390,000 if we want to run it at home (13 GPUS H100, 9100 W of consumption), but thanks to Compactifai it is possible to reduce that cost to 60,000 dollars (2 GPUS H100, 1,400 W). One more “thin”. The “Slim” models provided by the company – Derivatives of Llama 3.3 70b or Call 4 scout– They are compressed versions that theoretically do not lose precision. They can be executed through the AWS platform or by licenses that also allow us to use it on-premisethat is, in local/own infrastructure. According to their metrics, these models are between 4 and 12 times faster than their non -compressed versions, which translates into an inference cost that is between 50% and 80% lower. Image | Multivize Computing In Xataka | Spain is finally

The doors of green hydrogen from Spain have found its starting point: the Basque Country

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While Spain account With several hot green hydrogen points, infrastructure for distribution, such as H2Med, still Keep in development. However, the Basque Country has emerged as a new channel. Short. The H2BIDEA project, coordinated by Nortegas, aims to boost the development of a pure hydrogen distribution network in the Basque Country. The initiative will have the aid of the company Tubos gathered, in charge of creating the special tubes where high pressure hydrogen (160 bar) will be transported. A great initiative. Through a consortium of Basque companies, H2bidea It is cemented The pillars for the Basque Corridor of Hydrogen (BH2C). With this corridor they seek to establish an interconnected green hydrogen infrastructure that facilitates its transport and distribution, both regional and European. In three years, H2BIDEA hopes to have a distribution network demonstrator called H2TESTLAB, which will allow evaluating the efficacy of the installed infrastructure, according to has had notic access from Álava. Mass support. The project has the support of the Basque Government and the European Union, as well as with the collaboration of the Basque Companies Consortium, such as Arizaga, Bastarrica and Company (ABC Compressors), Orkli, Commercial of Electronic Applications (FIDEGAS) and Calcinor Servicios. It is not the only one. Because Spain continues to advance in the creation of more projects, such as the Mediterranean corridor (H2Med). This development initiative intends to interconnect Spain, France and Portugal by 2030 in what will be the first European hydrogen infrastructure. However, in recent weeks, has faced a controversy In Zamora on the use of water in the production of green hydrogen. More challenges at European level. A recent study by West Wood Energy consultant has estimated that only 17% of green hydrogen projects in the continent will materialize within five years. In that context, According to a Global Energy Monitor reportEurope faces difficulties to fulfill its decarbonization strategy due to the shortage of hydrogen produced in a renewable way. The limited amount of available green hydrogen and the slow progress of the announced projects question the viability of the energy transition plans of the continent. From another perspective. The Basque Corridor is an initiative that has emerged as a strategic point for the production and export of green hydrogen. In this way, it joins the ambitious plans of Spain to become a European green hydrogen leader. In fact, recently, the Spanish nation launched A hydrogen project with an investment of 1,214 million euros from the NextGneu funds. Image | TUBOSREUNIDOS Xataka | The Plan of Spain for leading green hydrogen has been faced with an unexpected problem: Zamora

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