ETA's 2006 ceasefire declaration

On 22 March 2006 ETA sent a DVD message to the Basque Network Euskal Irrati-Telebista[2] and the journals Gara[3] and Berria with a communiqué from the organization announcing what it called a "permanent ceasefire" that was broadcast over Spanish TV.

The calculated ambiguity of the term "permanent" (which was a novelty when compared to previous "ceasefire" declarations) was widely discussed by most observers, even though it was mostly regarded as a positive sign of ETA's will to quit its violent activities.

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".

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".

[8] The statement was regarded by some as intended to put pressure on the talks with the Spanish government,[9] which were announced on 17 September,[10] and by some other analysts as a declaration of ETA's ultimate intentions, making clear that the organization will not disarm until every single one of their goals have been completely achieved.

[13] On 4 November 2006 Gara newspaper published excerpts of ETA's bulletin Zutabe no.111, in which the organization pondered that "if the Spanish government doesn't fulfill its compromises and there are no visible steps, the peace process will be broken".

Also, the hunger strike of ETA activist Iñaki de Juana Chaos led to Kale Borroka actions by some youths liked to the abertzale left.

On 30 December 2006, at 9:00 in the morning, after three confusing warning calls, ETA detonated a van bomb in a parking building at the Madrid Barajas international airport.

ETA extended their solidarity to the "collateral damage" (the two Ecuadorian immigrants killed by the explosion), assuring that the "objective of this armed action was not to cause victims" and blamed the government for the dead, in view of the alleged lack of diligence evacuating the building.

[6] On 21 June 2007, Spanish police found 130 kg (285 pounds) of explosives in a car parked in the town of Ayamonte, near the Southern Portuguese border.

The cache was suspected to belong to ETA, stoking fears that attacks would be imminent after the group announced the end of the "permanent ceasefire" on 5 June 2007.