Binational Village Wants to Be Simply ‘European’
By Mario de Queiroz
RIO DE ONOR, Portugal, Jun 20 , 2007 (IPS) - This tiny village of 109 people straddles the border between Portugal and Spain. On one side are the 50 houses of Rio de Onor de Braganza and on the other are the 20 houses of Ríohonor de Castilla. But the locals feel they are one community, and they want their hometown to be declared the first simply "European" village.
The mayor of Portugal’s Rio de Onor, Antonio José Preto, tells IPS that the idea emerged two years ago "in an assembly in which both the Spanish and Portuguese villagers took part. We unanimously decided to ask to become the first European Village, something that does not exist yet, even as a concept."
Preto says the formal request was sent to European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels with the signatures of all of the villagers from both sides of the border. But the 74 Portuguese villagers and 35 Spaniards who want their village to be renamed Río Honor de Europa have become disillusioned with EU red tape.
In the two years since the village assembly was held, they have received no response whatsoever to their petition. "Europe would seem to be farther and farther away," is the most common complaint heard in the village tavern when the subject comes up.
The Portuguese villagers lash out at the president of the European Commission, the EU executive arm, José Manuel Durão Barroso: "He's Portuguese, he could have helped us," complains one.
While they wait for news from the bureaucracy in Brussels, life as a unified community goes on.
"We have always been united, and have always considered ourselves one village, one people, who plant and harvest together on common land and have a jointly owned village flock," says Preto. "We are the product of many mixed marriages, between people from both sides of the river."
The river marks the border in one part of the village, while a street marks the frontier in another. A chain used to divide Rio de Onor from Ríohonor, but it was finally removed because of the inconvenience it caused: cars actually had to make a 60-kilometre detour to cross from one side to the other.
Lying across the border is a community garden worked by both Spanish and Portuguese villagers. There are families whose members live on both sides of the border, and many own land in both countries.
They also share their own dialect, "Riodonorés", which is basically "Portuñol" - a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese.
The immense majority of the blond and blue-eyed villagers, descendants of the Celts who long ago populated northern Portugal and northwestern Spain, also share a last name, although those born on the Portuguese side spell it Preto and those on the Spanish side Prieto.
In fact, because of marriages between people of different nationalities, many families are Prieto Preto or Preto Prieto (both the maternal and paternal surnames are used in Spanish and Portuguese).
The Portuguese part of the village is in the Tras-os-Montes region in northeastern Portugal, 25 kilometres from the regional capital Braganza.
The Spanish portion of the village is in the northwestern Spanish province of Castilla y León.
As part of the effort to become the first "European village’’, one of the first steps was to ask the University of Salamanca to carry out a study on the joint infrastructure that would need to be built and services that would have to be established, for which the villagers hope to obtain EU financing.
"We hope to get a health centre and a pharmacy, create a bilingual school to replace the one that closed 15 years ago because we had no children left, improve the roads, and found a retirement home," says Preto.
A school without children? "Yes, because that way we could get young couples, who leave now because there is no school for their children, to stay. Besides, educating people isn't just for kids; it also helps improve the cultural level of adults and fights functional illiteracy," he says.
The villagers feel isolated because of the lack of a frequent transport service. On the Portuguese side, the bus comes only on weekdays, and on the Spanish side the bus comes through only on Mondays and Thursdays, complains Beatriz dos Anjos, who lives in Ríohonor.
She says it is absolutely essential to have a car, and adds that "whoever doesn't have one has to rent one."
Dos Anjos has no doubt that people live better in Spain. "If I get sick, I don't want them to take me to the other side. Even though I'm Portuguese, the reality is that medicines here are cheaper and if you have a problem, the doctor comes quickly" from Sanabria, a nearby town, she says.
Everyone knows that medical attention in Spain is of higher quality and free, and that wages are better as well. Furthermore, prices are lower, especially in the case of electricity, cooking and heating gas, many food items, and gasoline, which is 22 percent cheaper than in Portugal, where the only things that are less expensive are coffee, beer or a cup of wine.
But although "Spain provides the drinking water, sanitation is in the hands of Portugal," says dos Anjos.
And while "there is still much to be done," roads have improved immensely in the last few years, she adds.
In a village where everyone knows everyone else, Spanish villager Miguel Prieto approaches a group made up of the mayor, two photographers and a journalist. Even before anyone asks him anything, he says he is "very sad and (doesn't) feel much like talking."
He has his reasons: "My Portuguese girlfriend of several years just left me."
Unlike the Portuguese villager who praised life in Spain, this Spanish resident defends Portugal outside the tavern, loud enough so that everyone can hear.
"When I want to know something about the world, I read the Portuguese newspapers, which arrive every day, compared to the Spanish papers, which you can only get twice a week. And as far as television goes, all you can get here are the Portuguese stations; the Spanish signals aren't even picked up here," he says.
One of his fellow countrymen believes that he discerns a hidden agenda in the villager’s praise for the country that lies across the street. "It's a conciliatory message aimed at the girl who left him," he ventures.
This tiny spot forgotten by modern-day Europe "is also a marginalised frontier for Spain," geologist and environmentalist Valentín Cabero tells IPS.
Cabero is a professor from the University of Salamanca who is on a visit to Tras-os-Montes province with a group of Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Mexican and Peruvian students.
"I hope the European Village project takes concrete shape, it's a pioneering initiative," he adds. "But I also hope that it wouldn't translate into the loss of identity of this region which is so rich in terms of the environment, culture and traditions." (END)