Electoral politics and ETA’s ceasefire

Abstract

The recent Euskadi ta Alkartasuna (ETA) ceasefire declaration has been received with much interest and fanfare by the international media. The same announcement was met instead with a tangible lack of enthusiasm by Spanish and Basque political figures. The Spanish president Zapatero, the Basque president Lopez and Urkullu, the leader of the most voted Basque nationalist party (PNV), agreed that the communiqué was a ‘step forward’ but ultimately ‘insufficient’ and ‘not the news the country had been hoping for’. Such mix of scepticism and disappointment is partly a product of the previous failed experience with the 2006 ETA truce. Months of painstakingly slow negotiations between ETA and government representatives were then shattered with a bomb attack at Madrid airport that killed two people. The outcome left the Zapatero’s government frustrated and unwilling to get their fingers burnt again.