Catalan parties and Government believe ETA’s announcement is “the beginning of the end”

Barcelona (ACN).- The Basque terrorist group ETA announced the “definitive cessation of its armed activity” with a “clear, firm and definitive purpose”. The announcement was made on Thursday afternoon through a written statement and a video statement. ETA did not add any conditions, but it did not announce its break up, neither the destruction of its weapons. In addition, it did not talk about the pain caused to its victims, but only talked about the suffering of ETA members. At the end of the statement, ETA called for the Spanish and the French Governments to “open a process of direct dialogue, which has as its aim the resolution of the consequences of the conflict and thus the conclusion of the armed conflict”.

The general reaction in Catalonia has been of satisfaction. The Catalan Government, with a statement by its President, and all the Catalan parties consider ETA’s declaration “an important step”. However, they all coincide that ETA’s announcement is not the final end, as now other steps are needed for the terrorist group's end. The Catalan President Artur Mas stated that he is “hoping for the terrorist group's total break up and the total abandonment of its weapons”. The Catalan Victim Association of Terrorist Organisations criticised ETA’s announcement and said it only hopes for ETA’s complete end, but other individual victims have celebrated the news, such as Ernest Lluch’s family. ETA has killed more than 800 people, 50 of them in Catalonia.

The Catalan President: “it is the beginning of the end”

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, who is also the leader of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist coalition ‘Convergència i Unió’ (CiU) said that everybody has been “hoping for a total break up of the terrorist group ETA and the total abandonment of its weapons”. However, Mas considered the announcement to be good news. “I believe that any good person has to be happy about such an important step”, said the Catalan President. He also added that it is “the beginning of the end, at the beginning of a road that has to take us to the end of this nightmare for once and for all”.

The PSC: ETA’s break up cannot be conditioned to any political negotiation

The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which is Catalonia’s main opposition party and is the party of the ruling Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), issued a press release celebrating the news. “Democracy will know how to offer the most adequate way leading towards the definitive surmounting of a conflict that has hit the Basque Country and Spain as a whole in an extraordinarily unfair and painful way”. The Executive Committee of the PSC added that the terrorist group’s final end and the abandonment of its weapons “cannot be conditioned to any political negotiation”. In addition, the PSC stressed that the overcoming of the conflict “will not mean forgetting about the tragedy suffered by the victims and their families, whose memory will always remain alive”.

The Catalan Independence Party asks the Spanish Government for a move

The Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party ‘Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya' (ERC) asked the Spanish Government to make a move and allow the Basque and the Catalan people to decide on their own future, claiming for the right to self-determination. ERC’s Spokesperson in the Catalan Parliament, Anna Simó, asked the Spanish Government “to quit its ivory tower, show the same nobility the United Kingdom had and allow the people to freely decide”. Simó added that now “with peace as the only reality within the Spanish State, it is the time for the people of Spain to have their inalienable right to self-determination”.

The other parties' reaction

The Catalan branch of the People’s Party (PP) did not have any official reactions and some of their members individually referred to the PP’s leader for the whole of Spain, Mariano Rajoy. Rajoy considered ETA’s announcement “an important step” but said it had to wait for their final end and the abandonment of their arms. Rajoy also stressed the huge pain ETA has caused to its victims.

The Catalan Green Socialist Party ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds’ (ICV) stated that ETA’s announcement is an “historical opportunity”. ICV has called Spain’s main parties, the PSOE and the PP, to show that they able to face the challenges of the statement. ICV’s President, Joan Herrera said that “there are no precedents to a definitive abandonment of weapons not conditioned to anything”, indicating that some kind of negotiations will be unavoidable to see ETA’s final end.

The populist and anti-Catalan nationalist party Ciutadans (C’s) has asked the Spanish Government not to accept ETA as a political equal. Ciutadans’ President Albert Rivera considered that it was obvious the terrorist group would not continue killing “as it was trapped”. Rivera said that ETA is now trying to exchange its end and abandonment of its weapons for a political short run to become Spain’s and France’s go between” […] “of a false conflict that does not exist”.

The Catalan victims are divided

ETA killed more than 800 people, 50 of them in Catalonia. The Catalan Victims Association of Terrorist Organisations (ACVOT) criticised ETA’s announcement and said it only hopes for ETA’s complete end, but other individual victims have celebrated the new. José Vargas, ACVOT’s President, was very unhappy about ETA’s declaration and said he wants “their break up and the abandonment of their weapons, and for the fugitives from Justice in prison, and those in jail to take condemn for their actions”. “It is another statement” from the terrorist group, he said. However, other Catalan victims, not linked to this particular association, celebrated the news, such as the daughter of Ernest Lluch, a former Spanish Minister from the Socialist Party killed in his own car park eleven years ago.