There are signs that ETA may call a ceasefire to launch a similar initiative to the NI peace process, writes Paddy Woodworth
'If you want history to remember you as the Spanish Tony Blair, we will support you all the way." This was one of the remarkable statements made last weekend in an unprecedented letter to the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
The writer was Arnaldo Otegi, leader of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the Basque terrorist group ETA.
Even more remarkably, Mr Zapatero did not reject Mr Otegi's apparent olive branch out of hand, but spoke of his willingness to "listen" to Batasuna, a pariah group for most Spaniards, if ETA called a ceasefire.
Speculation about an imminent end to violence in the region has been rife since Mr Zapatero's Socialist Party (PSOE) replaced José María Aznar's deeply conservative Partido Popular (PP) last March.
An ETA statement, clearly choreographed to coincide with Mr Otegi's letter, indicated that this time the rumours might have some foundation. ETA offered support for Batasuna's "peaceful and democratic" strategy, announced last November, in return for "mutual demilitarisation".
Though the group made no explicit commitment to lay down its arms, sources close to the Spanish government were reported on Monday in El País, Spain's newspaper of record, as believing that another communiqué, declaring a permanent ceasefire, was in the offing.
Last Thursday, however, after an ETA bomb injured a Basque policeman near Bilbao, a spokeswoman for the Basque regional government, dominated by moderate Basque nationalists, dismissed Mr Otegi's letter in the following terms:
"Anyone who wants to play the role of Gerry Adams in this society will need more authority [ than Otegi has] to create the necessary conditions for a peace process, because if anyone thinks we are going to build peace with bombs, extortion and terror they are mistaken."
The Irish peace process, despite its many difficulties, remains a key reference point for Basque nationalists, though this analogy is totally rejected by most Spanish political leaders.
In any case, the Basque nationalist reading of the Belfast Agreement is often idiosyncratic, to say the least, and significant developments over the past four weeks have rewritten the Irish blueprint in surprising ways.
The Basque question has been a blot on Spain's supposedly exemplary transition from dictatorship to democracy for nearly 30 years. Basque nationalists of all stripes refused to support the 1978 constitution, largely because it did not recognise a Basque right to self-determination.
However, to complicate matters, the moderate and democratic Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) then backed the 1980 statute of autonomy, within the limits set by that constitution.
The PNV has been in government in the region, which has a narrow nationalist majority, ever since. For most of that period, the PNV actively supported the Madrid government's efforts to eradicate ETA.
But the radical Basque nationalists, now grouped in Batasuna and supported by up to 15 per cent of the Basque electorate, remained outside the system and gave more or less explicit support to ETA's bloody "armed struggle" for full Basque independence.
In 1998, however, the PNV changed tack and declared that the autonomy statute was "exhausted". The party entered into a pact with ETA to pursue self-determination by peaceful means. But ETA's subsequent ceasefire broke down a year later in a climate of mutual recrimination between moderate and radical Basque nationalists.
Nevertheless, the PNV has continued to demand some form of self-determination. This has earned it fierce hostility from the major Madrid parties and media - and from the large minority of Basques who want to maintain the status quo.
But this demand attracted many votes to the PNV from Batasuna supporters, who were deeply unhappy with ETA's return to violence.
The banning of Batasuna in 2003 by the Aznar government (with Mr Zapatero's full support) provoked surprisingly little protest in the Basque Country; though, crucially, the group has retained its regional MPs until the next election.
Then the March 11th bombing massacre, though carried out by Islamists, drained away much of any remaining enthusiasm for violent methods in Basque public opinion.
The detention of ETA's alleged leadership last autumn, coupled with massive arms seizures, suggested to many observers that the group was on the verge of collapse, capable only of sporadic and (relatively) innocuous bombings. An unprecedented call by imprisoned ETA veterans for an end to violence reinforced this analysis.
Meanwhile, the PNV continued to advance its "Plan Ibarretxe", named after the PNV leader and regional first minister, Juan José Ibarretxe. This plan calls for a new status of "free association" between the Basque Country and envisages a referendum on the issue, which Madrid has declared illegal in advance.
Mr Ibarretxe currently heads a minority government in the Basque parliament. In a complex game of political chess, the PNV seems to have calculated that the plan would be voted down at regional level, because Batasuna, who say the plan does not go far enough, would abstain.
The PNV could then go into next May's regional elections blaming Batasuna for blocking the road to self-determination, hoover up their votes and negotiate a new deal with Madrid on the strong basis of an absolute majority in the region.
But Batasuna upset this rolling PNV bandwagon by allowing three of its MPs to vote tactically for the plan, on the grounds that its acceptance by the Basque parliament would effectively annul the existing autonomy statute, and create a totally new and open political scenario.
And so it has. Mr Ibarretxe now has no choice but to take his plan to the Madrid parliament immediately, where it will certainly be heavily defeated.
He must then decide whether or not to directly challenge Madrid with a referendum before the Basque elections, from the weak position of minority support. Simultaneously, Batasuna and ETA are suddenly engaging in conflict-resolution-speak with Mr Zapatero, for which the PNV can take no credit at all.
Reports of the death of Basque nationalism seem to have been greatly exaggerated.