ETA's 2006 Ceasefire Declaration - Reactions To The Declaration

Reactions To The Declaration

Most political parties welcomed the news of a ceasefire on the part of ETA. The government (under the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) administration) displayed an optimistic and hopeful response to the announcement, although in official statements president Zapatero called for "prudence".

PP: The People's Party (headed by Mariano Rajoy) showed pessimism with regards to this announcement and claimed that it was only a pause for ETA, probably in the same fashion as the previous truce (declared by ETA in 1998, under president Aznar's administration). Rajoy called on the government to continue "fighting terrorism" and reject negotiations.

Basque Government: Juan José Ibarretxe called for the establishment of a negotiation table "without exclusions" (i.e. involving all the concerned political sectors, i.e., Batasuna, which is currently illegal).

Batasuna's position evolved from a cautious optimism into increasingly serious warnings against what they considered "a lack of resolve on the part of the Spanish government" and what they believed was "a will not to solve the conflict but to erode the Nationalist Left". The harshest of such warnings was issued in 5 December 2005, when they gave a press conference denouncing "continued repression" (in reference to the detentions of ETA members by the police) and warning that the peace process could "hardly continue in such conditions". After the Barajas bombing, Batasuna remained the only political party that considered that the "ceasefire" was still viable. An ETA communiqué released soon after the Barajas bombings stated the terrorist group's apparent will to continue negotiations. Five months later, on the 5 June 2007, ETA released a statement affirming it considered the "ceasefire" to be over, warning attacks would be resumed at midnight that same day.

The 2006–2007 ETA "ceasefire" was a period of heightened political tension in Spain. The strategic interests of the concerned political parties and the mutual recriminations between Spanish politicians of acting with hidden agendas were often at the forefront of the discussions.