Bizkaia is one of the three provinces that were united as Euskadi, the Basque Autonomous Region, under the 1978 constitution that decentralized Spain's political administration after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco. It accounts for more than half of the Basque region's GDP and although its economy is now mainly service-based, more than a third of output still comes from industry. However, Bizkaia's GDP is forecast to grow by 4% this year compared with 3.7% for the rest of the Basque Country and Spain.
Over the past couple of years, Bizkaia's star has been finally in the ascendant. Along with the collapse of its industrial lifeblood the Basque Country has had to bear the cross of political terrorism by ETA, the separatist group that since the late 1960s had been waging open warfare for Basque independence, fancifully defined as union with the province of Navarra as well as...
