MADRID, Feb. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Spain's parliament Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a Basque plan for greater autonomy for the troubled region in the north of the country.

    By a vote of 313-29 with two abstentions, the parliament rejected the scheme, submitted by the leader of the Basque country Juan Jose Ibarretxe, which would see the substantial autonomy now enjoyed by the prosperous, three-province region upgraded.

    The plan calls for a relationship of "associated free state" with Spain. On Tuesday, Ibarretxe used the phrasing "shared sovereignty," proposing that the region would have its own legal system and representation abroad in organizations including the European Union.

    Spain's mainstream parties in Madrid see this as a threat to the country's cohesion and fear Ibarretxe's plan would raise the specter of similar claims by other regions, particularly Catalonia.

    During the debate, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero rejected the plan, saying in reply to Ibarretxe: "This is the seat of democratic Spanish sovereignty, of each -- and every one -- of the regions."

    "All Basques ... and all Spaniards will decide the relationship between the Basque country and the rest of Spain," added Zapatero.

    In his half-hour address, Ibarretxe said he was standing up for the Basque people's inalienable rights. The region "is not a subordinate part of the Spanish state," he claimed, adding Basques will go ahead with their own plans regardless of how the parliament voted.

    Ibarretxe had urged lawmakers in the national parliament here not to spurn an "historic opportunity" to resolve relations between Madrid and the Basque country, poisoned for four decades by separatist violence fomented by armed separatist group ETA. The group has been blamed for more than 800 deaths since the late 1960s.

    Madrid's fraught relations with the Basque region have been oneof Spain's biggest problems since its transition to democracy in the late 1970s. The problem is further complicated by the violent group of ETA, which fights for an independent Basque homeland carved out of northern Spain and southwestern France.

    Ibarretxe, whose party firmly rejects ETA's violence, said ETA had "done immense harm to our families and to the image of the Basque people."

    But he also criticized what he said was the precipitate way in which the national parliament in Madrid had been in a hurry to reject his plan instead of at least setting up a commission to study it. He insisted that his blueprint was "legal, legitimate and democratic."

    Mariano Rajoy, head of the right-wing opposition Popular Party, said the plan was like a "declaration of independence" that would dismantle the state and "bury the Spanish constitution." Enditem