The Lanabes – Araban Euskara Lanean initiative is aiming to influence the use of Basque in the Alavese business environment.

More and more companies in our Province are incorporating the management of Basque into their everyday activities, into their relations with their customers or with their suppliers, and in the linguistic landscape both internally and externally. This is borne out by the companies that have obtained the Bai Euskarari or Bikain certificates, or those that have a Basque language scheme in place. It is a reality and the companies are aware of the benefits derived from encouraging and using Basque in the socioeconomic field.

The main AIMS of the LANABES project are to introduce and increase the presence of Basque and thus promote Basque in the Alavese socioeconomic environment. Three lines of work have been agreed on for this purpose:

• To monitor and publicise the group that has led the Lanabes – Araban Euskara Lanean project.
• To build awareness in the socioeconomic sector of Álava about the environment of Basque use. Communication.
• To involve all kinds of organisations and individuals in order to increase the presence of Basque in the Alavese socioeconomic environment.

This project sets out to build a network of well-known companies and organisations in the Alavese socioeconomic environment.

The member of the Chartered Provincial Council responsible for Basque, Culture and Sports Igone Martínez de Luna stressed the fact that until now the efforts have been focussing on the Basquisation of education, but what also has to be taken into account is the encouraging of Basque in the professional world so that society will continue to be multilingual: “It is very important to realise that both education and the professional world are important hubs for giving Álava the colour of multilingualism. The relationship between the two environments will have to be worked on and now is the moment to start. The wellspring exists, what we need are tools to take this wellspring to the professional world,” she remarked.

Ms Martínez de Luna expressed her wish that the professional Alavese world should be a benchmark in language management. When referring to language management, she pointed out that it is about “uniting”, about the “balance between languages” and about the “development of the province”.